user research design

Observation Research Design for 'Bilibili.com'

INTRODUCTION & RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. The purpose

Bilibili.com, started in 2009, now is the biggest online video community for the teenager and youth in China. It is famous for its barrage function in videos, people can communicate their views in real-time in related videos. Videos are mainly about animes, games and video clips by users, and other types of videos made by users themselves.

Since designs of the player page in the website is not update for at least 3 years, not only the designs are not match people's demands and also many design forms fell behind the design trends in the area. So me--the product designer of front-end, and 3 developers of front-end, one UI graphic designer, we together worked on designing a new page to give users a better experience.

This is the work flow for this update. This update is about rearranging the layout of this page, it means we need to adjust the locations of different functions. It is closely related to weight of different functions in this page. Therefore, the definition of one function, its click rate and number of people click everyday are very important references for this redesign.

Now there are two serious issues needed to solve:

1. People can only see the half of the player once they open the player page.

2. Some functions(like "Toss coins" and "Collection") are repetitive in one page.

According to the data from our background( because of the company's privacy policy, I didn't show the data analysis in this project), we redesigned the player page like this.

old3

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new1

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old3

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1/2

Interactive buttons:

Support: When users like the video, they can "support" it
Toss coins: Users can reward the uploader by tossing coins
Collection: When the video is favorite for users and they maybe want to see it again in the future, they can collect them
Share with: Users can share the video to other friends who may like it

Barrage: When the video is playing, people can send comments of the video or only one moment of the video to the screen in real-time

Barrage settings: people can adjust the features(the size, color or location...) of the words in Barrage

In the new design, we offer an entrance for the new version test, people can enter into it to try the beta version.

Now we need our users to try the new design, as the interactive buttons related to every video are very important for us to collect people's data and make the video community keep active, we will narrow down our topics to interactive buttons in this test.

This update we want to research two topics: the evaluation about the new design, the activeness of users.

2. The target client

Teenager and youth, the range of age is 10-26.

STUDY DESIGN

I will test 2 persons at one time to see whether the new version is good enough compared to the old one. In this test I will use the method---Observation.

The reason I use this method is because at one side observation is a normal user research method in the company, on the other side, observation method can make me watch the whole process of people using our player page, which can make me know where make people confused and the complete experience make people immerse into this paper and use any function naturally.

In the test, I will prepare the questionnaires to record participants's background and the behaviors they will perform in the test. I will also prepared a recorder, in case we need to talk with people which much information in it.

I will test them at their home, because it is an entertainment website, make people more relax and play.

PARTICIPANTS

According to our users' features. Usually we have three types of young users(personas).

The user who study in high school. They love animes, but there is little time left to them to watch videos. Usually sticking themselves to our website on weekends and vacations. They need to use mobile devices not really own by themselves.

I will recruit them from the forum of Bilibili, since some students show their

identity and stay in the forum to communicate with others.

The user who study in University. They like animes and games so much, at the same time they have plenty of time to stay online, likely to follow the uploader they like and watch their update closely. No one can limited them space and time to have fun on our website. They are active in the barrages and comment areas.

I can recruit them from IDM in Tandon NYU, some of them are the users of this

website, it is convenient to let them test the player page.

The user who work in different area. They have wide ranges of hobbies, but have the limited time to spend in the website. They usually use the fragmented time to watch video.

I can ask my friends, who are working in different area.

I plan recruit 5~6 people for every persona. This test will just pay attention to our old users, who consist 80% of daily users and also may more sensitive to the update.

INSTRUMENTS & MEASURES

1. Preparation

The computer shows our website and participants will try to design in it
A timer: To set the limited time to do every steps
A note and a pen: Write down some general information in the talking
Questionnaires: In it, it lists the question will be filled out in the observations

The research--me-- will also be the observer and I will control the whole process of this test.

If the observer is another one, before beginning to observe, I will introduce basic information of my web design, include how to play or use, the general information of users. I will introduce my observation design to the observer clearly, it includes: the purpose of this observation, the function or interaction I plan to focus on, why I design the measurement and question like that. If possible I will introduce the method of data collection to observers, make them more serious to their choice in every question.

2. Measures

At very first, I will collect demographic information. It includes their school or company, the city they are living, their gender.

The interview questions: I will need to collect the information about their using habits to make sure I can ask them suitable questions and also have a predict about the survey. This includes the length they usually spend in player pages, the buttons they use frequently in player pages.

Around topics, I build up the research questions and specific question according to research questions, I will list the specific questions in the questionnaires

PROCEDURE

DATA ANALYSIS PLAN

All of the questions I design are questions of degree. Among it, if the answer is “yes”, it will get 4 point; if the answer is “No”, it will get 1 point. The higher of grade shows more people are satisfied with the new version; if the answer is “once”, it will get 1 point; if the answer is “twice”, it will get 2 point; if the answer is “more than twice”, it will get 4 point.

Then I will calculate the score of each questionnaires, compare it from different measurements and analyze the result.

CONCLUSIONS

1. As this time my participants are only one person, who is very familiar and loyal to our website, she used the website very well. From this test, I can find our new version is safe, at least our old user have no uncomfortable feelings in the process to use it.

2. This is not the final conclusion, since this participant have so obvious feature: use this website for years, have more passion on the special uploaders she likes, so she will not randomly use the interactive button, which make me cannot observe behaviors related to these functions.

3. I have not got her basic information before observation, which lead to a little hurry and confusion about her behaviors. For example, when opened the player page, she entered into the full-screen model and only focus on video. I did not know how to guide her to view the whole page to taste our new design.