Enhancing home improvement activity experience: Defining interaction concept of digital assisting system
Master thesis plan Chien-Ting Jessie Hsu / Industrial and Strategic Design programme, Aalto University, Finland Thesis mentor: Dr. Virpi Roto, Post-doc Researcher, Aalto University, Finland Thesis supervisor: Dr. Stephanie Arndt, Manager of UX , C/UX, Robert Bosch GmbH, Germany
Overview of master thesis project Planning and working on home improvement activity is never a piece of cake. For example, massive volume of information and lacking experiences on decision making usually cause confusion and anxiousness to users. Furthermore, uncertainty of proceeding home improvement activity diminishes users’ confidence to achieve their goals. According to this phenomenon, this master thesis will develop an interaction concept of digital assisting system which can be beneficial for users who require supports while working on home improvement activities.
Background of thesis project This master thesis project will be a collaboration work with “UPA” project in C/UX (Zentralabteilung User experience), Robert Bosch GmbH, Germany. UPA is acronym of “Ubiquitous Personal Assistant”, refers to a digital, personalized and context-aware companion system that supports European DIY users for home improvement activities. UPA has been worked as an internal research project in Robert Bosch GmbH from 2012. Primary user studies were conducted within Germany and initial design concept development was finished in 2013. After around one year’s research work, UPA project would like to earn inspiring insights and new interaction design concepts for further elaboration through collaborating with my master thesis work.
This thesis project works as an independent project besides UPA, but interaction concept and research conclusions will be beneficial to UPA’s design concept development in the future.
Motivation of thesis collaboration Strong personal preference on studying domain of user experience design and interaction design is the main motivation to choose this project as collaboration subject of master thesis work. Besides, I had many opportunities to participate intriguing user experience design projects while working as a user experience design intern in C/ UX, Robert Bosch GmbH. Within many interesting projects, UPA is a strong potential project and its future design development demands catch my eye. During current stage, this project mainly centralizes on general level of user research and technical discussion of human-computer interaction. This thesis collaboration would be a valuable chance to discover distinctive insights of improving user experience, and reinforcing emotional elements between users and interaction design concept. Moreover, collaboration work with UPA project does not only fulfill my personal interest of exploring insights of user experience design, but also a great chance to help me to develop possibility of applying this interaction design concept to other domains, such as home automation.
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Objectives Objective of the thesis project is establishing interaction concept for digital assisting system, which helps users to improve self-efficacy while working on home improvement activities. This concept will be communication medium between users and the system, and building a bridge of positive experiences from system to the users. To achieve the objective, finding similarities and common behaviors from different users who have distinguishing assisting demands and live in unlike cultural contexts will be the basis of interaction concept development. As mentioned in background of thesis project, target user group of UPA project is European. However, previous user study of UPA project was conducted only in Germany, and three user groups are defined by single variable, which is experience levels. This method focuses on users’ experience and skill level, but ignores emotion demands and behaviors of users. It leads definitions and characteristics of these user groups are not explicit enough to create a concept, which can build strong connection to users. Based on the phenomenon, this master thesis project will conduct user research in Finland in order to understand similarities and common behaviors of users who are from distinct cultural contexts. According to findings of user research and analysis, major functionalities and UI visual concepts will be built. Based on objectives of thesis project, several research questions are conducted, and they will be answered by the thesis work.
Main research question: How to define an interaction concept and UI visualization, which improves self-efficacy for different users groups to proceed with home improvement activities?
Sub-research questions: • Can planning phase and hands-on phase of home improvement activities be seen as separated contexts? • How can interaction concept provide positive experiences to unlike user segments? • Can patterns of user behaviors or assisting requirements become filters to categorize new user groups?
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Methodology Major methodologies of the thesis work include
This online survey will also get primary responses
literature review, field study, ideation session and UI
from potential participants, and these responses
visualization.
will be reference of ideation work. Field visit, observation and video ethnography should be
Literature review starts from scratch of thesis work.
carried out in participants’ home in order to
a review of prior, relevant literature is an essential
understand their regular behaviors of proceeding
feature of any academic project. An effective review
home improvement activities.
creates a firm foundation for advancing knowledge. It facilitates theory development, closes areas
Ideation session will be carried out after field study.
where a plethora of research exists, and uncovers
Within the session, user groups and observation
areas where research is needed(Watson, Richard T
insights will be categorized and analyzed. According
Webster, Jane, 2006). Based on finding from
to these basic findings, ideation brainstorming,
literature review, concept development and design
design drivers, UX targets/goals setting and design
drivers will be established.
concept sketches will be created and defined. Moreover, interaction concept and several basic UI
Field study will be conducted during user research
visual concepts established during this session.
stage of thesis work, includes user research plan, field visit, observation, video ethnography and
UI visualization will be realized at last stage of thesis
interview. Field study is the first step to know users
work. Finalizing UI visualization concept and basic
and contexts directly, and understanding relevant
UI demonstration on digital device will be achieved.
behaviors of users is very significant for starting
These working samples are going to be foundations
thesis work as well. All the field study works will
of developing future design concept of UPA project
be conducted in Finland, and participants will be recruited through user research planning survey in advance.
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Partner and place of carrying out
Risks
As mentioned above, this thesis work is a
Carrying out successful user research on schedule
collaboration project with C/UX, Robert Bosch
and is the most risky part of the thesis project.
GmbH. Most of workload, such as data analysis,
Since there is only one month to proceed all the
ideation and prototyping will be carried out in
user research work, proper schedule management
Leonberg, Germany. Nevertheless, for earning
becomes very important. On the other hand, finding
different user insights from unlike cultural contexts
suitable participants for field study and recruiting
than previous study, user study of the thesis work
process could be another potential risk of thesis
will be carried out in Finland. During working
work. Lack of channels to recruiting participants
time in Germany, Robert Bosch GmbH provides
and language barrier affect the process of and
an independent working space in C/UX office for
time management, Furthermore, it also can bring
proceeding thesis work.
negative effect of doing field study.
Costs and Funding
Schedule
All user research expenses and traveling costs
Official contracted thesis working period with
which relate to this thesis project will be covered
Robert Bosch GmbH is six months of full-time work,
by C/UX, Robert Bosch GmbH. Besides, this is a paid
from April to September, 2014. However, including
collaboration work, and the author is employed by
negotiating and preparation time of thesis work,
C/UX, Robert Bosch GmbH.
whole working period will be nine months. Rough
IPR This project is not restrained from any confidential agreement between the author of master thesis,
schedule of thesis will be displayed in following table.
Reference
Robert Bosch GmbH and Aalto University, this
Watson, Richard T and Webster, Jane. “ Analyzing the
project will contain no confidential materials.
past to prepare for the future: Writing a Literature
Besides, the author will own intellectual property
review “, Webster & Watson/Guest Editorial, 2006
rights of this master thesis work.
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Topic discussion Conducting user research plan Literature review User research Analysis and ideation Concept development Visualization and evaluation
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September