Challenge Goals
For this challenge, I was tasked with conducting research to discover and organize these activities to make informed recommendations to the Togetherish design team.
Hypotheses
We began with a few key assumptions
Brainstorming Activities
My team and I all had experience participating in, or organizing, virtual hang time. Picture are a few of the initial activities and themes we came up with. After our quick brainstorming session we had several kinds of activities.
We wanted to focus on brainstorming a variety of formats, timeframes, amounts of focus required, and different levels of engagement so that participants could choose what worked best for their schedules and lifestyles.
Secondary Research
Using secondary data to discover and document more activities.
From secondary research, I discovered more activities to explore for Togetherish and themes we came up with.
Everyone from The New York Times to reddit and the blogosphere is talking about activities you can do during quarantine to stay close to your friends and family. I did some research and read through a several articles and pots, then selected the activities that seemed the best for a variety of different groups, plus added a few more ideas that were sparked!
Card Sorting
Organizing activities to help users easily discover the perfect one for them.
Used an Open Card Sort where participants can create and label themes.
Used the list of activities created from brainstorming and secondary research.
Participants were given 7 minutes to organize and label activities
Card Sort Results
a few main categories emerged, four that were clear and solid and then one that became a catch-all for cards that didn’t quite fit elsewhere. The users tended not to want each category too big, so when one became heavy, they started to choose cards to go elsewhere.
“Self-Care” had very clear results and was very consistent, as was “Culture”
I was surprised by the addition of the fifth category in this card sort, where th user didn’t feel that the items under “party” fit under “Night Out-In” or “Interactive Games.
Design Team Recommendations
Using what we learned to inform design decisions and improvements.
I would recommend organizing activities in four main groups: Culture, Self-Care, Games, and Night Out-In.
I would recommend next researching to see if these categories scale when a large number of activities are added and limited to these groups, or if additional categories emerge.
Next Steps
A few things I would do to continue to learn more about about the research goal, and create meaningful improvements to Togetherish
Review card sorts for themes
Further open and closed card sorts to test scalability
Determine statistical significance
Sketch & test a library design
Design Mockups and continue user testing