M5

Milestone 5: User Study

Moving forward in the design process for our application, we are looking to find more specific use-cases for silent video communication and create features in future prototype iterations to support these specific scenarios. Through our user testing, we want to quantify various components of our application such as video/message length and number of videos per conversation thread based on prompts for different communication scenarios as well as gain qualitative data regarding our application’s usability.

Our hypothesis is that light-hearted conversation topics will result in shorter message cards and longer videos and conversation threads as our application is meant to be an information means of communication. Conversely, serious conversations will result in longer message cards and shorter videos and conversation threads. We predict that people who are avid users of Snapchat will be more engaged in our app and thus have longer videos and thread lengths.

We will run user tests on a few different groups of people. Since our app is similar to other quick-video communication apps like Snapchat, we will run studies on people who are avid users of these apps as well as people who do not use such apps. This will give us insight into how we differentiate ourselves from the other video-communication apps.

We will conduct an observational user study where we present two users that do not know each other with several conversation prompts (in a randomized order for each study) and our application. We will only provide a brief overview of the application at the beginning and leave it up to the users to discover the step by step processes for creating and responding to videos. This will allow us to test the intuitiveness of our design. Additionally, we will use the data to determine the average video length, average text card message length, and the number of back and forth videos in a conversation. After the study, we will ask users their opinions on the least intuitive steps in the video communication process and their suggestions for redesign.

• Most people created videos that were 3-7 seconds long
• Some videos were cut short because people were unclear on how to use the app or the purpose of the app

• Conversations generally ended after 2-3 videos back and forth
• Only one pair of users continued their conversation beyond a few videos
• It was hard for us to come up with prompts that would foster a rich thread of communication

• most users started talking in their first videos even though we mentioned the app is based around silent videos
• many users were slow to get started on the app and record their first video
• they were also unclear about the purpose of the app and what types of videos they should be sending
• the conversation thread view was confusing to almost all users, most people wanted a better way to differentiate between the videos they received and the videos they sent
• there was a surprising number of videos (all but one user did this) that were recorded with the front-facing camera
• one user noted it would be interesting to see the app turn into a way to play charades with friends

• the people we interviewed who said they used snapchat frequently said that they rarely use it for video (only photos)
• the two most popular video communication platforms were Skype and Facetime

The first thing we noticed was that it took users a long time to get started on our app. It was not immediately clear what needed to be done in order to make a silent video. When they finally got to the video-making part, they struggled with understanding the format of the videos and in what context they would send these videos to their friends.

We expected people to use the app to show their friends the environment around them. Instead, when presented with the app, most users turned the camera to face themselves. When people think of video messaging, they naturally think of sending a message of their face. This makes sense in the context of the currently popularity of other video platforms like Skype and Facetime.

When people think of videos, they also naturally think about audio. Thus, many of our users subconsciously started talking at their phones when recording their first video (even though we told them this was a silent video app). It wasn’t until they played back their video did they realize that no audio was recorded. This is probably due to the fact that all other videos we see on a daily basis come with sounds.

There were a couple of shortcomings in our user tests. First, since we made up the conversation-starter prompts, the situations felt very contrived. This led to our users having little-to-no emotional attachment to the conversations, and thus led them to only produce 2-3 videos per thread. Second, since people knew they were the subjects of a user test, they probably deliberately made short videos just to “test” the app.

Surprisingly, our initial hypothesis that avid Snapchat users would best understand our application and partake in the longest conversations was incorrect. Rather the opposite was true. Snapchat users tended to find our application confusing at first since they were not used to sending videos without sound. Participants that did not frequently use Snapchat seemed to embrace the concept of silent films since they did not have any initial assumptions. One user even stated she does not use video messaging systems as she cannot view the videos with sound and thus has a reduced viewing experience.

Since many of our users were confused when first starting to use the app, it will be helpful to add a tutorial or a quick guide to point them in the right direction. In addition, we should add a few sample silent videos to give users an idea of what the videos will look like after the title cards are added in. That way, they will not be caught off guard when making their own videos.

We noticed that it was natural for users initially to associate video with audio and they started talking while recording their first videos. This led to some confusion when they played back their videos for the first time and heard no sounds. In the next iteration we will make the silent feature more explicit within the app itself (perhaps both before and during the recording of the videos) to get rid of this confusion.

Unfortunately it was very difficult for us to encourage our users to continue their conversations beyond a few videos back and forth. Based on these results, we realize that we may have to pivot our idea slightly to encourage more of this continued conversation and make the video creation experience more enjoyable. The charades idea mentioned by one of our users piqued our interest and we may start to look in that direction for next week.