Steve Ives, CEO and FounderApril 10, 2023
Creating the User Experience for a new mobile search engine
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Aims of presentation
“Walkthrough the UE design approach of a startup mobile
search company”
Introduce Taptu and the product
Walkthrough our UE design approach and tools
Demo of our latest product version
Question & answer session
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How many of you regularly use a search engine on your mobile?
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How many had a positive experience?
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About Taptu
FocusBuilding (and making money from) a new kind of mobile search
ExpertiseMobile user experience, search algorithms
Innovation15 key patent applications filed in mobile search
Service launchAlpha service in Oct 2007, Beta V1 in Feb 2008
Investors3i and Sofinnova, £5m Series A
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About me
Technologist and business guy
Serial entrepreneur: Aspective, Teamstudio, Trigenix, Taptu
50 years old
My children are Generation Y, I’m not….
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The challenge for Taptu
• Search requires a different approach in the mobile environment
• Search must be provided within a highly constrained interfaces - different devices, inputs, screen-size, latency
Google Mobile, Yahoo OneSearch and Live Search for Mobile are variations on a very similar theme.
They are designed and engineered from the perspective of:
“bringing the best of PC Web search to mobile phones”
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What is our UE Design process?
Our aim is to create usable, engaging and aesthetically pleasing products across the wide range of devices Taptu works on
We are pragmatic about UE approach - ‘Text-book’ approach not always possible - but we aim to use the right tools at the right stages
We spend a lot of our time thinking about the needs of our users and talking to users direct:
12 months, 14 user studies
133 users, 1 hour per user
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Key stages of our process…
Concepts + Ideas
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Key stages of our process…
Concepts + Ideas
Paper Prototyping
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Key stages of our process…
Concepts + Ideas
Paper Prototyping
Device Prototyping
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Key stages of our process…
Concepts + Ideas
Paper Prototyping
Device Prototyping
UE Testing
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Key stages of our process…
Concepts + Ideas
Paper Prototyping
Device Prototyping
UE Testing UI Spec
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Gary, 23 “Unwired Social” Kate, 27 “Digerati”
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Prototyping the UE
Prototyping is central to our process - use it constantly as we develop new ideas & features
Key benefits to us:
1. Designing the end-to-end experience
2. Creating a believable product for a User Study
3. As a discussion tool with Engineering
We use two types at different stages - Paper Prototyping and Device Prototyping…
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User Task
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Task Flow Design
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Idea Annotation
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Device Prototyping …
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Device prototyping
Device Prototyping the is the next step from Paper Prototyping… need to experiment with designs on the target devices once we happy with design on paper
Hi-fidelity of device-based prototypes offer a number of benefits that paper prototypes don’t provide
The device-specific issues of screen size, input, controls, navigation, pixel-perfect visual design all need to be explored & considered
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How we do it?
Produce ‘static’ prototypes – they create a believable walkthrough of particular paths we want to test
HTML/CSS + Photoshop - create pixel perfect graphics and build prototypes using HTML
Slower to iterate than paper prototypes - but for many device/browser specific design issues/decisions we need to create device protos at various stages
Ideal for user testing - still minimal production and no engineering time required
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Device-specific design issues
What design issues do we deal with per device?
We have defined 3 core ‘families’ of device:
Low phone - standard 176x220 e.g. RAZR
Mid phone - QVGA e.g. Nokia N95, Sony Ericsson W880i
Hi phone - iPhone, more will follow
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Taptu on mid-phone (N95, W880i)
Branding and white space are key
Secondary navigation elements below the foldElements make it clearly a search engine
Global navigation elements grouped and consistent
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Taptu on hi-phone (iPhone)
Scrolling: Scrolling is much quicker with finger
Selection: Touch interface requires wider spacing of elements
Text entry: Text entry is quicker than other two device types
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Visual design + brand …
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UE Testing with users …
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UE testing approach
Once we have a working Device Prototype, we test…
On a monthly basis we find a set of target users and meet them face-to-face, one-to-one, 1 hour sessions
We test in London - so we can source widest demographics of users for sessions
We built a fully portable lab - so its less intrusive/formal and we can go anywhere with it
We make this a regular event in our schedule - so we get maximum exposure to testing concepts with real users
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Portable usability lab
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Mounted camera
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Picture-in-picture review format
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Live example of User Study Session…
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Future Taptu direction
Today: good at infotainment searches (e.g. music, movies, TV, news), mobile navigation (mobile sites)
Tomorrow: universal search
Search and share engine - enhancing sharing functionality with 1-Tap share concept
Human-assisted search for popular terms
Further user research + international research
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Conclusion
What have we learned aboutthe UE design process?
- Evaluate early- Don’t assume, do listen- Iterate often!
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You can try Taptu on your mobile phone browser - enter www.taptu.mobi
Or on PC - www.taptu.com
Or Facebook App - Search for ‘Music Wall’ in Facebook
Or Music Cube game - Search for “Music Cube” on Google
Q&A
Want to try it?
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