Case Study: Reinforce a better work in living room

Changing into a ‘better way’

Due to this covid lockdown situation, I thought to spend my time usefully by learning new things. So I came to know about “User Experienced Design” (UX Design). I searched a little about UX design and found Growthschool where they came up with two days Workshop. I enrolled myself in that and learnt a bit about UX designing. At the end of the two days session, they announced UX Mastery Course. After two days I joined a UX mastery course with them. As per their project timetable, the first step of UX Design is the “Design Thinking Process”.

PLAN OF ACTION

So as per the Design thinking process, they made us into 10 different groups in each group 6 to 7 members were there. They gave us a set of topics based on the parts of the house such as Balcony, parking, terrace, living room, home office, dining area, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, storage areas, utility area. We should choose a topic but not choose the same topic which your teammate chose. So I took the topic living room. I took the living room because it is the main place of a house.

What is Design Thinking?

In simple words design thinking is a better way to understand the user’s problems that they are facing and giving them a permanent and simple solution.

For Finding the problem and solution for the users we need to go through 5 different steps such as EMPATHIZE, DEFINE, IDEATE, PROTOTYPE and TESTING.

In this process, we were made to chose our teammates as users.

EMPATHIZE the users

The living room is a common and public place of a house. The living room is mainly used for spending time with family, watching television and sometimes even for working purpose because due to this pandemic people used to work from home.

Interviewing our users will help us to find their problems and difficulties facing in their living room. So let's find out!

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. What properties do you have in your living room?

2. How will you spend your time in the living room? Describe in detail.

3. Have you ever visited your friends or relatives’ houses? If yes, describe the Experience in their living room.

4. If any guest visits your house, in which room will you make them sit and how well you treat them? Describe briefly.

5. While Watching TV in your living room, where will you keep your things like TV Remote, DTH Remote, mobile, headphones etc?

6. What is the purpose of the living room? Tell it from your perspective.

7. Size of your Living Room?

8. Colour of your living room?

9. Lighting in your living room?

10. What will you say that a perfect living room is? Like what things will make a perfect living room?

11.Would you prefer to work or study in your living room? If yes, why and what and all difficulties will you face while working or studying?

12. Rate your living room experience out of 10.

So I interviewed four of my teammates and below is their answers.

As per the interview, my users are having almost similar stories. I also asked for their photos so that it will be useful to segregate the problems.

DEFINING the problems

Ok, now we are at the toughest stage where I need to find the problems based on their answers.

So I have made a list of the most common problems where my user’s face. Here it is below👇🏻.

In this stage, we should only find the problems not give ideas. So I have found 9 major and common problems faced by my user.

These are the problems that disturb my users’ living room Experience. Some of the problems which I found using their living room photos.

IDEAS for solving problems

As I told most of my users are facing similar problem such as not having enough space, dark ambience, not having a comfortable sofa, positioning of the light, get body pain while working etc.

Most of the problem is based on the furniture they use in their living room. So I have listed some of my ideas for solving their problem.

IDEAS:

1. Making a better and smart wooden centre table

• A button-type structure is placed in the legs of the table so that we can adjust the height.
• Making a table where you can lift a portion of the table 45° based on your comfortability.
• The legs can be foldable so that if you need space in the living room you can fold it and keep it aside.

2. Painting the living room with light colour.

3. Making a comfortable sofa where we can press a button for leg cushion so that you can also lie down and watch TV. A pillow would be kept for leaning purpose.

4. A big and bright light should be attached in the middle of the living room so that it will not disturb the user while watching TV. That light would spread all over the living room.

5. A box should be attached to the centre table so that you can keep your remote in it.

From these ideas, I have segregated them into top 3 major ideas which will make my users’ living room experience better.

Making of PROTOTYPE model

Now we are at the easy and very interesting stage. In this stage, we were asked to make a prototype model of one of your idea. A prototype should be made with any material as they said not to spend much time in a prototype. So I chose to make some illustration model.

I have selected the first idea for prototype and testing stage.

As per my prototype, it is a single table which has three different feature:

1. It has a height adjustment feature so that whenever the user needs more height they can press the button which is in the legs of the table and pull the table height, whenever they need the table low press the button and push them down. They can adjust the table to six different height. For eg: If my user need to eat in the living room and they need the table the height to increase they can increase them at that time if they need the table low to keep their legs on the table they can decrease them. This is how it works.
2. The legs of the table are foldable so whenever my users need space in their living room they can fold the table and keep it aside.
3. They can also lift a portion of the table 45° so that you can place the book or newspaper in it and lean on the sofa for reading purposes. So people will not find any neck or back pain while reading.

These prototypes are mainly used in the next stage called

TESTING

In this stage, I presented my prototype to the users I interviewed through zoom and explain to them what I did and in what way it is useful for them.

As per my explanation, they need to give me some feedback about the product. So there is some feedback given by my users.

Now you may ask where is the feedback of User 4. He is satisfied with my work but it doesn’t work like that, every user should say feedback or I need to push the users to give me the proper feedback so I asked him again and again. So he suggested working on other ideas such as light, sofa. He also told that “ the third feature of your table lift a portion of the table 45° will not work in all the cases na”. This was his statement.

The main and common points in the feedback are:

1. Heavier to lift the table due to the material is wood.
2. Don’t like a lifting technique as they don’t work on all the cases.
3. Change the height adjustment method.

From this feedback, I would like to change some of the points in future.

That is,

1. I would like to remove the liftable type.
2. I like to change the legs of the table into stainless steel metal. So that it will be lightweight to lift the table.
3. I like to change the height adjustment system. First I put it into a button type, Now I change it into lever type. You can pull the lever up to increase the table height and push it down to decrease it.

Due to this system, the foldable mechanism will also be changed.

👆🏼The above image is an example of 3rd point.

What I have learnt from this PROJECT?

1. From this project, I have learnt that User Experience design is not mainly based on the tools but also based on the psychological thinking about the user.
2. I should think from the user’s perspective but not from my perspective.
3. While asking questions I need to give space for the users’ to tell their answers and not to tell the answers.
4. User Experience design is to make the user’s experience simple.
5. The design thinking process is a step by step process to understand and identify the user’s problem and give them a simple and useful solution.
6. No problem if I make mistakes and not being perfect.

“IMPERFECTNESS IS MY UNIQNESS”

Excited to do the following in the FUTURE…..

1. I like to display my project to the world.
2. I like to do the design thinking process again so that I can understand even better.
3. I like to ask better questions which make me understand the user’s problem even better.
4. I will also find a better solution to my problems.

#student4life🤟🏽

Hey guys, so this is my case study and thank you for reading it. I hope you like reading my case study. If you like my case study just clap so that I could understand you liked my case study. If I have made any mistake in this case study you may tell me through comments so that I will not repeat the same NEXT TIME!

For eg: If my user need to eat in the living room and they need the table the height to increase they can increase them at that time if they need the table low to keep their legs on the table they can decrease them. This is how it works.