Jiuqi Gao 'Jennie'
Google Assistant
for Gen Z with Tailored Onboarding & Habit-Building
GA = The Perfect Sidekick
Duration
10 Weeks (2023)
Role
Research Lead,
UX/UI Designer
Type
UX/UI Design, Sound Design
(Team Project)
THE CHALLENGE
To increase engagement and reduce churn among users of Google Assistant, understand how consumers discover and react to digital assistants, and explore product ideas that enliven and ease a consumer's first week learning about and using Assistant.
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THE OUTCOME
Our project aimed at transforming the Google Assistant user experience has successfully harnessed the power of personalization and gamification to revolutionize how users are on-boarding and how they are habit-building with the Assistant.
delivery overview
How might we introduce users to Assistant early through personally relevant experiences?
How might we help users build habits with Google Assistant to increase engagement?
Our mission is to seamlessly onboard users to Google Assistant through personalized experiences that enhance habit creation and encourage long-term platform use.
Our vision for Google Assistant is to create a personalized and accessible, user-centric experience for daily life.
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Plan OF ACTION
Conducted user research surrounding the set-up process of Google Assistant. After the research stage, the team developed possible concepts that could improve the onboarding process.
Conducted research on how we can help users build habits with Google Assistant. The research informed initial concepts.
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1.research
Insights from Onboarding Team:
1. Initial Setup & Onboarding
Users face challenges in effectively setting up and familiarizing themselves with their virtual assistant, leading to inconsistencies in their onboarding experience.
2. Emotional Connection
Users struggle to emotionally connect with and differentiate Google Assistant.
3. Concerns about Usage
Users may feel awkward using virtual assistants in public due to concerns about response accuracy.
4. Struggles with Capabilities
Users struggle with their assistant's capabilities, resulting in challenges with complex tasks and concerns with data-sharing due to a lack of transparency.
5. Time Management
Users feel disconnected and not engaged due to generic and rigid schedule recommendations, leading to poor time management.
Insights from Habits Team:
1. Effortless Learning
Users feel upset when failing to complete a task and don’t want time-consuming learning when setting up.
2. Willingness to Explore
Users feel excited when they first use the device. They have a tendency to try new features.
3. Guidance
Without any tips, users are confused about what Google Assistant can do.
4. Trustworthiness
Users tried to build trust and have a conversation with Google Assistant but were frustrated by the robotic feel.
5. Funny and Responsive Feedback
Users like comedic interactions and being heard.
Users (N=7) have positive feelings toward voice assistants in the discovery. They were aware of assistants and trusted the technology.
The onboarding process was seamless, but the lack of personalization limited user engagement. However, users felt satisfied with the information they received during onboarding. Google Assistant’s ecosystem was also perceived as positive.
When it comes to habit building, there is potential to give users relevant personal experiences.
We believe in a personalized onboarding process and meeting advanced user needs to promote engagement and loyalty. This can be achieved by targeting unique features, addressing privacy concerns, and providing intuitive scheduling, creating a competitive edge and fostering long-term loyalty.
We believe that our target audience of 18-24 year olds have adaptive lifestyles and constant changes in routines which are challenging to form and maintain. By providing consistent and personalized guides, we can create an engaging and effortless learning curve of forming users’ habits.
3. initial Concepts (low-fi)
Onboarding Team:
(Click the Icon to explore the prototype)
Habits Team:
(Click the Icon to explore the prototype)
4. Filtration
1. How might we make it easy to opt in or out of gamification since it’s not in everyone’s interest?
2. How might we provide a sense of accomplishment/reward when they unlock a new feature?
1. How can we provide an “emotional win” for users without creepiness (after completing a task)?
2. How can the assistant show its personality and responsiveness without using user data?
3. How might we make the set-up process engaging and lightweight? What if they skip?
4. How might we re-engage users in the personalization settings in their daily usage?
1. How might the users get to the usage history page?
2. How could it evolve over time to engage the users?
5. concept testing
At the end of the concept testing process, we decided to further develop the gamification and personalization concepts.
Refined HMW
How might we implement gamification and personalization into Google Assistant to increase users’ engagement while saving their effort throughout onboarding and week one of user experience?
