Beverage Appliance – Maintenance & Materials
Bentley User Experience Center | Spring 2018
The Project
A User Experience Center (UXC) client contracted our team to test a number of prototypes related to a yet-to-be-released beverage appliance. This particular project involved testing the user experience of maintaining the appliance, as well as getting feedback in response to the concept, look, and feel of the prototype.
The Prototypes
The prototypes to be tested included a photorealistic digital rendering of the appliance, functional physical prototypes of the appliance, and prototypes of several printed instructional and safety materials that would accompany the appliance. The client was interested in seeing how easy or difficult it was for participants to understand the information in the accompanying printed materials, and in learning about how participants were able to or unable to move through the process of cleaning the appliance. To conduct the latter part of the test, participants needed to use both the digital rendering of the appliance and the physical prototype.
Task 1: Printed Materials
The client wanted to test whether or not the printed materials that would accompany the machine were easy to understand. To do this, we had participants review the materials individually, and then compare information across the materials. We asked them about their expectations based on what they were reading, and had them describe the processes they saw based on their understanding of the material.
Interestingly, we found that the materials gave the participants outsized confidence. After reading the materials, participants felt that they would be comfortable using and maintaining the machine. As we saw in the next step of the session, the maintenance of the machine was a far greater challenge than anticipated based on the printed materials.
Task 2: Maintenance
The machine requires its user to maintain it routinely by running it through a cleaning cycle. During the cleaning cycle, the user must interact with the machine by pushing the start button, adding cleaning tablets, filling a water tank, and emptying and replacing a water receptacle.
To run this part of the session, we had three versions of the physical prototype set up in the lab. Because the physical prototypes were not entirely illustrative of the process, we also had an on-screen Invision demonstration of the cleaning process that had been used in prior testing. Participants were asked to engage in the cleaning process, and it quickly became apparent that they were unclear where and when they needed to interact with the machine, what the process entailed, and when the cycle would be complete.
High Level Findings & Recommendations
User Guides
- Users found that while the materials gave them a good sense for individual components, they lacked key information about how to use the appliance and how, holistically, the individual elements were meant to function together. We recommended reconsidering the copy and structure to better tell the “story” of how to interact with the appliance.
- The materials implied that maintenance required a singular procedure, when in fact context matters. We recommended that materials be updated to cover key scenarios that users are likely to encounter, in order to ensure that they are prepared to handle them.
- The materials contained important information, but presented it in different formats and across different pieces. In our tests, this resulted in confusion about how the user should interact with the appliance at different times, and caused users to mistakenly identify component parts. We recommended that categorical information be presented to the user together, rather than piecemeal; we recommended that, if possible, the three pieces be condensed into a single comprehensive piece.
Cleaning Process
- Users expressed that the expectations they had for the cleaning cycle were not matched by the actual experience. Rather, they found that the process was far more complex and confusing than the materials had led them to believe. We recommended setting expectations in the introductory material to mitigate later frustration and/or disappointment.
- Some users noted that their confusion about the cleaning process stemmed from a general lack of understanding about how the system worked overall. To further mitigate confusion, we recommended transparency in detailing for the user how the appliances’s parts work together and how the process of creating a beverage physically functions. We also recommended that references to specific parts should be accompanied by a description of what they do; this is especially true for the parts that the user cannot see.
- Participants had several mental models for how the cleaning process was going to work, including a dishwasher and a washing machine. They generally expected a cyclical cleaning process that would allow them to initiate and then walk away until the cycle was complete. Because this is not the case for the beverage appliance, and because the mental models for cleaning are ubiquitous and strong, we recommended clearly delineating between each cycle, and further explicitly stating to the user when they need to interact with the appliance during this process.
