Month: December 2023

MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava

MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava MTN Mega Khava

Self-service WhatsApp bot - 2023

Key skills: Information design and copywriting

5 - 10 minute read

Key Players

Client:

MTN, the African telecom giant; one of the most recognisable and trustworthy brands on the continent.

Service provider:

aYo Holdings, a microinsurance provider serving seven African countries.

Elevator pitch

Collaborate with the team at aYo to design a self-service WhatsApp chatbot to be the automated interface for their family funeral cover in South Africa.

The management team called the UIX team in to help with copywriting and visuals, however we soon uncovered flaws in the user journeys – leading to a more comprehensive evaluation.

The cast

Lead UX designer – Me |  Supporting UX designer – De Wet |  Business analyst – Elouwdi |  Project lead – Duncan |  Solution architect – Louw |  Development team – Clickatell | Sadia Scott – Programme manager.

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Summary of my role

My role was to coordinate the UX effort, take responsibility for copywriting, and organise the user journey. That said, teamwork and collaborative feedback played a key role.

The timeline

Research

Research tells us…

MTN’s competitive prices and value-adds has them in the running – but the truth is, good customer service would be a deal breaker.

Connect this with WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app in South Africa and home to numerous successful chatbots. Suddenly, the future of MTN Khava looks promising.

User research:

With no budget for new user research, I did the following…

  • Leveraged aYo’s 2022 research in South Africa (conducted by TRi Facts).
  • Learned from existing usability studies on chatbots (Nielsen Norman Group, IBM).
  • Studied aYo’s user research on the South African lower to middle class microinsurance target group (2019).

Other research:

  • Funeral cover research: Finmark Trust 2020.
  • Tech research: workshops with Clickatell, our development agency.
  • Competitor research on microinsurance (Vodacom, Cell C, Telkom) and funeral cover providers (Sanlam, Old Mutual, Avbob).

 

  1. Average cost of funeral: R15,000 – R100,000
  2. Average monthly salary of target audience: R5,500
  3. Average monthly contribution to funeral cover: R300

Empathise

Empathy map: The research indicates that the user base has limited financial resources yet highly values funeral insurance.

Aggregated user persona: Meet Innocent – a family man shouldering many debts.

The User Experience of Chatbots (2018). Nielsen Norman Group.

Journey Mapping Insights

Main Problems

  • WhatsApp is a platform for conversation, yet our bot lacks language processing. This leads to issues.
  • Decision trees lack flexibility. This is a pain point for task-oriented users.
  • Messaging is expected to be conversational and easy-to-read. Understanding insurance requires more complexity, and more reading.

Main Opportunities

  • Communicating the limitations of the bot (being a tool), while offering access to outside help (from a human) prevents drop-off.
  • In the absence of search functionality, a hierarchical and simple decision tree is the best aid for task-oriented users.
  • Utilising media uploads allows messages to be brief (as expected) and documents to be expansive (also as expected).

Decision tree mapping

Decision tree: broad overview

My identified IA guidelines

  1. Simple tree, simple flows, simple tasks.
  2. Use logic and hierarchy.
  3. Limit choices.
  4. Quick access to key functions.
  5. Adhere to WhatsApp limitations.
  6. Limit user error by replacing typing with buttons.

Major limitation

Navigation allowances on WhatsApp are limited: there is no intuitive way to provide flexible navigation.

To solve for this, I conducted competitive studies of WhatsApp bots (DisChem, Discovery, SpecSavers, etc.) and team brainstorming. The outcome? A not-so-perfect escape hatch for users who must type ‘help’ when stuck.

An intuitive solution was not possible, so ease of interaction (i.e. moving forwards) was prioritised over ease of navigation.

Copywriting

Bible #1: Terminology

South African funeral cover goes by many names, with no consistent rhetoric for benefits and value adds. MTN had the same problem.

The UX team made a logical choice and enforced it. The product is named “Khava” which translates to “cover” in Xhosa. I simply decided to use this name consistently.

Here is how I mapped out naming conventions for all other benefits.

Terminology map

Bible #2: “That feeling”

Creating a VOICE for our bot meant honing in on the “feeling” I wanted users to experience. Through a team brainstorm I identified “sunny and informative”, “reassuring”, and “compassionate” as the most important characteristics for our bot.

My job was to design one voice to carry each moment, without invoking the knee-jerk reaction to a complete tonal shift. I used Torrey Podmajersky’s voice chart technique as a blueprint.

How to have a nice chat

Just like human conversation, which unfolds in small bursts of back-and-forth, I wrote messages to convey one concept at a time.

Before users entered a long process, I provided a roadmap to set expectations.

Instructions were clear, emojis and fluff kept only for conveying sentiment.

Limitations

I limited buttons to 18 characters, menus to 10 items, and messages to 160 characters for at-a-glance readability.

The chat only serves as a rough outline, other media must convey detail. Remembering users aren’t here to read was critical.

Prototype + test + iterate

* A note on testing

All testing was conducted internally with aYo staff standing in for actual users. Frequently, these tests resulted in a propensity for lengthy, information-dense messages, which we know to be less effective on WhatsApp. Instead, I focused on interpreting feedback to enhance usability.

16 journeys later

Outcome pending…

After several iterations and continuous collaboration with design, development, and client, we finally landed on a chatbot with a little style and a lot of usability.

The product is due for launch early 2024.

Key Performance Indicators

The following KPIs will be evaluated once the product reaches real-world users.

  1. User uptake – are we meeting expected market standards?
  2. Conversion rates – are new users converting into paying customers?
  3. Error rates – how many errors are users experiencing?
  4. Drop off rates – where and why are users dropping off?
  5. The claims process – how fast is a claim on average and would it be improved with upload functionality?

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Game design for children - 2022

Key skills: Visual communication and testing

5 - 10 minute read

Client

The Goethe Institut (South Africa) – a German educational organisation providing information on cultural and societal diversity.

Project overview

The Goethe Institut, dedicated to introducing children to a variety of languages and cultivating a love for culture, has created a series of interactive, tangible games. Their eleventh endeavour marks a turn to digital, driven by the requirements of an audio-based format. The concept involves an iPad game where children match audio clips to the respective languages spoken.

The Cast

Designer and developer – Me | Graphic artist – Freehand Studios | Project manager – Tina | Content manger – Christina

Summary of my role

Design a beautiful, child-friendly language game for offline iPad usage. Test the prototypes on the Goethe staff, then build the Progressive Web App with sound, animations, and a pinch of humour. Finally, test the design on real users at a Goethe event, iterate the design, and provide the final product.

The timeline

Requirements

The game mechanic

It’s simple, just guess who’s speaking. Listen closely though, there are ten languages at play!

Requires active listening

Unlike traditional tile-matching games, the Goethe Institut does not want you to race past begin. They stressed that users must listen to each audio clip in full and be encouraged to familiarise themselves with the language.

Once-off short gameplay

The game is to be played within a fast-paced and noisy environment, with people queueing to be in the next round. The full experience should be around ten minutes and it was anticipated that users would move on after playing the game once.

Prevent stereotyping

Each language should be represented by a unique character. With seven of the official South African languages and three European languages being used, it was important to convey cultural identity, yet avoid stereotyping.

Research & testing

Studying the audience

The typical audience for the Goethe Institut’s cultural events are school children, ages 6 to 19. The question of how make a game which can entertain and educate across such a spectrum became the topic of my research.

My most important insights were uncovered from the Nielsen Norman Group. The differences between age groups are vast, but keeping accessibility best practice in mind, I decided to design for the earliest age group — in this case a 6-year-old.

As long as all users can operate the game we have basic usability. Accounting for potential boredom in older children and adults would require adding difficulty levels.

User testing

  1. I applied an iterative approach to prototyping, involving Goethe staff as wells as friends and family.
  2. During the web development, I continuously used this same method of testing.
  3. Once I had a working game, I observed while children and adults of all ages gave it a go during a Goethe Institut event.
  4. Throughout, I iterated the game until the final product was enjoyable and seamless.

Focus

The “Multilingual Challenge Game” is a brief, 10-minute experience – a rather short time to make a lasting impact. I aimed to set a realistic and achievable goal, one which aligns with the Goethe Institut’s broader mission of fostering a love for language, yet scaled to the short time frame. I wanted to identify outcomes which are both specific and immediate, thus…

My goals:

  1. The game must be inherently enjoyable – a seemingly obvious, yet fundamental requirement.
  2. It should leave users with a sense of accomplishment, regardless of their performance.

Guided by these straightforward principles, I embarked on the design process with a strong emphasis on user experience.

Design cycle

Initial wireframe and copywriting

Metaphors

Effective game design for children often relies on visual metaphors rather than text. A notable example is using an animated traffic light and countdown timer to indicate a time-sensitive challenge. This approach captures attention and clearly conveys the concept of racing against time.

Conveying time visually

Goal:

A game which artfully oscillates between calm anticipation and rapid action. Players engage in a focused listening phase, absorbing a minute-long audio clip in an unfamiliar language. This is swiftly followed by a race against the clock to select the right answer.

Approach

  • Listening phase: use slowly animating, audio wave-shaped progress bars.
  • Guessing phase: use urgent, colour-changing timers.

High fidelity onboarding experience

UX Decisions

  1. Simple, consistent layout: A place for everything, and everything in its place.
  2. Cohesive use of color, font, and art to match Goethe Institut’s existing games. The only commissioned artwork was the character design.
  3. Visual communication was prioritized. Required reading was limited to 1-3 words at a time.

Tutorial Phase Overview

The Goethe Institut’s logic is that users will play the game once and then proceed to the next booth. Recognising that most users will be new to the game, the tutorial comes first – with a handy exit button for repeat players.

The tutorial itself is a condensed version of a single game round, focused on quickly familiarising users with the game’s functionality.

User testing revealed that the majority of players were able to complete the tutorial in under one minute – a success given our 10-minute limit.

Troubleshooting

This game was designed to be robust:

  • It works without internet
  • It is set up by staff and installed on a stand
  • It loops back to the beginning if abandoned

The one variant? Audio. Users must successfully collect a pair of earphones, plug them in, and hope that the volume hasn’t been turned down. This is where my troubleshooting screens come in. During testing, I had no users get to the stage where they required outside help.

Level design

Given the range of users, difficulty levels needed to be introduced to prevent boredom.

I identified two variables to adjust the challenge rating:

  1. The number of available choices
  2. The amount of time in which to make your choice

After testing, I tweaked the time allowances: young children needed ample time whereas older children got a thrill out of snap decision making.

Score cards

There’s no easy way to deliver a failing grade, but with UX copy I injected a little humour into the sign-off experience.

These playful quips are designed to prompt a little chuckle and end on a lighthearted note.

Project Outcome

Within just three months, this game went from concept to reality. We conducted one round of user testing (with approximately 50 people at the Goethe Institut’s event) and this was followed by one round of iterations. Feedback from users was overwhelmingly positive, highlighting the game’s fun, engaging, and user-friendly nature.

The Goethe Institut continues to incorporate the game in their events, featuring it on several iPads for offline use. They have reported numerous successes engaging with this as an educational tool for children.

Wishlist

Had we the budget, I would choose to work on the listening experience. As anticipated, younger children struggled to maintain focus while listening and would sometimes tap and swipe across the screen in frustration.

Idea 1: Tap = speech bubble

Anticipate the tapping and show a series of playful rebukes (in the corresponding language). This adds responsiveness and aids in learning.

Idea 2: Add some visuals

Listening without comprehension is challenging, why not anchor the audio storytelling with a illustrative visual component?

Brought to you by Laura Ann Seal, 2024