Tech in Asia PDC 2019 Notes — Building Data Driven User Experience

Ade Harnusa Azril
4 min readJul 31, 2019

Naning Utoyo - SP Group

INTRO

UX is not only for digital product, even country like Singapore has UX as well

Singapore UX

Onboarding starts in Changi -> Go to Jewel -> Shopping & eating in Changi -> Go to Singapore via train or highway.

If you take the highway, it was designed so you can see the Singapore landmark.

Between "What the product can do vs What users want", what users want is more important.

Context about SP Group -> Singapore Power is a government-owned electricity and gas distribution company in Singapore.

SP has some digital products such as SP Utilities app - Released in 2017.

This app enables users to make bill payment, EV charging, open utilities account, etc.

Start with the people you're designing for.

USER RESEARCH

Guiding Principle:

  • Customer centered
  • Data driven

SP Group uses lean process (from Lean Startups) with 2 weeks cycle.

Learn

Understand customer behaviors, needs, and pain points

User research should be unbiased. Can be conducted by talking to customers or learning from analytics.

User interviews should be set up in natural/intimate settings so we can earn their trust.

Interviews are used to gain qualitative info.

CASE STUDY

Case: SP Group is building EV charging station network in Singapore

Target: Cab drivers, resident EV drivers, there are also other target but I missed them (I think it's about government something-something).

First Step: Lean canvas & service blueprint

In the slide image they have this paper stick to the wall with post-it notes on them.

This is used for:

  • Alignment with stakeholders
  • Education
  • Uncover opportunities and gaps

Second Step: 5-act Interview

  1. Welcome - Build rapport and gain user's trust
  2. Discovery - Understand users and their existing behaviour
  3. Usability - See if users understand and able to user features
  4. Sacrificial Concepts - Get a sense of which concepts is important
  5. Debrief - Customize interfaces and purposes

User interviewed was from a pool of 50 users: residents, EV drivers, building managers.
Number of users should be around 5–10. The pattern can be established after we interview users within that range. More than 10 will not necessarily lead to better insights (the return will start to diminish).

How to decide what concept to bring to the interview for usability and sacrificial concept; since we haven’t got the insight on what to build yet?
Sacrificial concept is made if there’s a design workshop with the stakeholders. It can be based on previous research or assumption that needs to be validated on the interview.

Objectives:
Exploratory learning about EV cab drivers

Some of the questions were like “when was the last time you charge your car”, “how do you know you needed to charge your car” -> to find triggers
It is important to focus on the past behaviors and not future ones
The team has initial ideas such as book charging station so the questions also used to test this concept.
Questions conducted in natural order.

Third Step: Analyzing Insight

Using spreadsheet: Row -> Questions, Column -> Answer from users
Researcher add summary in blue text.

Fourth Step: Report to Stakeholders

The format can be seen on the photos. In this case they focus on two key things (charging time and location) and give recommendations to the team on what to focus or change.

Fifth Step: Research After Launch

Can be conducted via 3 ways:

  • Data Analytics — To measure the designs by analyzing the funnel of finding station experience and payment experience.
  • User Interview — 1 round with cab drivers and public drivers. Use insight from the data analytics to guide what to dig.
  • Community — Monitor conversation through Facebook groups and Whatsapp groups.

There was a slide about value proposition but I can’t connect it to the research and can’t confirm whether the research created the value proposition or something else.

That’s all. Hope this is useful!

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