Comfort at Prime

I was asked to help with a new gift concept for on-boarding full stack students at Prime Digital Academy. Prime had been giving their new students a gift of a water bottle. The feedback from students surrounding this gift was not entirely positive. Also, the current stock of water bottles was starting to run low. I was asked to provide Prime with some suggestions for a new gift to replacing the water bottle.

I took a two step approach to finding out more about our water bottle problem. First, I needed to know if there was anything wrong with the existing Prime water bottles design or functionality. I wanted to test the functionality of the water bottle to see if there were any flaws in that specific bottles design that contributed to the students dislike of the bottle. Second, I wanted to know more about our Prime full stack student that would be using this bottle. If the bottle itself was indeed a functional design, then perhaps a bottle doesn’t meet a current need of a Prime full stack student. If I knew more about who this student was, I was better prepared to suggest a gift idea that this student would connect with better than our water bottle.

Testing the existing Prime water bottle

I needed a method for learning more about the current water bottle that Prime is using. With the help of my UX teammate Shawn, I conducted a Heuristic Analysis on one of the existing bottles. First, we made a list of all the tasks that a bottle user should be able to accomplish with this bottle. Then, we proceeded to try to do each of these tasks with our water bottle. We found the water bottle to have a few minor flaws, however, it was a mostly usable and functional water bottle. Our Heuristic analysis of the item lead us to conclude that the water bottle is actually pretty good, therefore, the student’s issues with it were likely not related to the products design or features.

Finding out more about our user?

Testing our water bottle showed it to be a mostly functional item. So, why didn’t these full stack students like it? If not a water bottle, what gift could Prime give that would make a more meaningful connection to their new full stack students? To answer these questions, I needed to know more about who the Prime full stack student is. To get to know the full stack student better, I employed a classic UX research method.

Observing the students in their environment

Observing the students was the first method I used to get to know our them a little better. An AEIOU observation form was used to help catalog what I saw while watching the students interact in their environment that afternoon. I also joined several full stack students for lunch that day and was able to speak with them directly. From these observations and interactions, I was able to make the following statement about the Prime full stack student.

The Prime full stack student is someone who spends long hours seated while working at Prime, the student may not be fully aware of the impact that spending this amount of time seated could have on the long term health of their back.

Designing a solution

Now that we had some idea of who the Prime full stack student was, it was time to come up with suggestions for a meaningful gift for them. We learned from our research that every Prime full stack student had one thing in common. They all spent a lot of time seated while completing their work at Prime. I was curious to know more about the impact of being seated for this amount of time on workers in general.

Troubling conclusions that lead to an “Ah-ha” moment

My research showed that Prime students spend an average of 6 hours per day seated here at Prime. Experts in workplace ergonomics seemingly agree that spending this amount of time seated puts these students at risk for potential back injury.

Ah-ha! I wondered if I could potentially design a gift for full stack students that would both be appreciated by the student, but would also help prevent any potential back injury associated with sitting and completing their daily work at Prime.

I created three different design concepts for potential gift idea. The concept that was chosen for advancement was an ergonomic footrest that could be placed under the students desks. This footrest would be adjustable and designed specifically to take pressure off of the students lower back while they are seated and working. Our earlier research indicated that footrests of this type are currently already widely used in office environments were works spend long hours at their desks.

Testing the idea

The next step in finding out how full stack student would react to our proposed gift of a footrest was to make one and let them try it out.

I constructed a crude prototype of the footrest to test with actual full stack students. Unfortunately, restraints of time, budget and my skills in creating the prototype made for some specific challenges in making a working prototype of the design I had chosen. Fortunately, I was able to do a little quick adjusting to the footrest design. My original footrest design sat on the floor under the students desk. The design I ended up using was a basic hammock design. The hammock hung from under the students desk and is height adjustable.

The students got to test the prototype

After they got a chance to “put their feet up” using my design, I had a chance to interview three students and ask how well in accomplished the tasks of making them more comfortable while seated and if it was something a full stack student would even appreciate. I also had a chance at this point to ask these students directly if they currently experienced any back pain related to the amount of time they spend at their desk each day.

Overall the students response the the foothammock was positive. When asked how well the foot hammock would meet the goal of making a full stack students workstation more comfortable, the average ranking was 7 out of 10. Indicating the full stack students do have positive feelings towards our design concept.

Another “Ah-ha” moment occured when 1 of the 3 students I interviewed reported he is currently experiencing back pain that he attributs to the time he spends seated here at Prime. With actual students reporting they are experiencing back pain, and experts recommending that workplaces take steps towards preventing injury, further exploring the idea of giving these students our footrest was seemingly justified.

What happens next…

So far, this week I had researched the problem, designed a solution to it, and tested my idea with a few potential users. Now, It was time to compile all of my findings and present them as a design proposal to Prime’s stakeholders.

The stakeholders were impressed with my findings and asked that I further research how well this gift connects with our full stack students. They have also asked for a plan to further test the footrest by building a higher-fidelity prototype. I submitted a design proposal outlining several additional methods I intend to employ to further research full stack students and my footrest. These methods include:

• Creating a task analysis video recording of students habits at their desk for observation and further analysis by our UX team.

• Create two different high-fidelity prototypes in order to test our original design concept for the footrest as well as conduct another round of testing on the “foot hammock” design.

• Conduct an A/B test in which two groups of Prime full stack students are asked to test out the different designs separately. These tests would be recorded for further observation by my UX team.

• Create a survey for all participants of our prototype A/B testing. The survey’s goal would be to directly ask the user about the design and how it could potentially affect comfort in a full stack students working environment.

With these tools and research ideas at our fingertips, we are well on our way to designing a more meaningful gift for Prime to present their full stack students!