The Garmin Student Collaboration
LiveTrack Application
This was my first experience with a company and a large group. I was in charge of taking notes and documenting important design decisions throughout the process.
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Project Brief
In my freshman year of college, I got the opportunity, to coordinate with Garmin and work on their LiveTrack application. ​
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What is LiveTrack?
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LiveTrack allows users to share their activity data and location, live, to their friends and family via various sharing methods.
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The Goal
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In a group of seven UX designers, our goal was to improve the LiveTrack feature within the Garmin Connect Application by using data gathered through various methods of research and design, to create a more intuitive experience for users.
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The Timeline
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We divided up all the work we would be doing for the semester, into four sections, which have many objectives (as seen below).
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The Design Process
PRIMARY RESEARCH
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STORYTELLING
SECONDARY RESEARCH​
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UI DESIGN
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RESEARCH ANALYSIS​
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COMMUNICATION
DESIGN​
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Survey​
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After looking at some of the pain points, and what other competitors were doing, we wanted to see what users thought. Did they know what LiveTrack was? How often did they use it?
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The purpose of the survey was to gain more insight into how many Garmin device users use LiveTrack or not. Our focus was on the LiveTrack feature and people's current experiences with it. We generated 27 survey questions for various users and distributed the survey through social media. We got responses back from Purdue Running Club, Cypress Texas Running Club, Missouri Daily Running Club, Outer Banks North Carolina Running Club, and the Indianapolis Running Club. We received 246 complete or partial responses including 150 Garmin device user responses.
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Of 246 respondents, over half of them had never seen or heard of LiveTrack and hadn’t used it. Of the 17 people who used LiveTrack, the average satisfaction was between low and neutral, on the net promoter scale. Of the 45 people who have seen or heard of LiveTrack but haven’t used it, most of them stated they don’t have a need for it.
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Interviews​
The goal of our interviews was to verify data from the survey results. We hoped to get more insight as to why some users choose to use the LiveTrack feature and why some do not.
App Usage
Once a Day - In Evening
Device Usage
Track Activity Datat
LiveTrack Discovery
Word of Mouth
Reasons for not Using
Feeling that Nobobdy Cares
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Heuristic Evaluation​
A heuristic evaluation was conducted to better understand the use of LiveTrack, the purpose, and the function. For this evalustion Nielsens 10 usability heuristics were used. The three main areas defined as pain points were: help and documentation, consistency and standards, aesthetic and minimalists design.
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Competitive Analysis​
The purpose of the competitive analysis was to see how similar products with a similar feature make users aware of tracking and sharing information. From this, we found that it is important to:
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Provide a clearer way for users to know the feature exists
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Provide more options for sharing (Texting, iOS share sheets)
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Allow User B to view information within the Garmin Connect app, if they are a user of the application.
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Terminology:
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In our documentation, it was defined as 'User A' as the user sharing their location data, and 'User B' as the user to whom the data is shared and by whom that data is viewed.
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Pulling insights from the surveys, interviews, and heuristic evaluation, three different types of personas were formed. These types were: those who know what LiveTrack is used LiveTrack, and those who do not know what it is. The personas were created to help solidify ideas later on.
After analysis of the data that was collected the three most proficient pain points are as listed above. To get a grasp on some design paths to help in these areas, many sketches were made. Below is the reason we made the design changes, some sketches, and a prototype example.
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Discoverability
Help Users Find LiveTrack within Garmin Connect
Incentive
Give Users a Reason to Use LiveTrack
Understanding
Help Novice Users Understand LiveTrack
Sketches > 2 Designs
Realistic vs. Futruristic
With the methodologies that were conducted several different ideas were generated. The concept of realism was brought up with the constraint of implematntion. Thus two designs were presented.
Realistic Design
Futuristic Design
Final Design
After designing the above sketches personas were used in the new high-fidelity prototype. This helped up envision if this would actually solve the problems and help the user. Below is a video that was put together, to show one of the persona's journeys with the new prototype.​
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To ensure this was plausible a focus group was held. This helps to confirm and solidify our data and design.
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To the right is the high-fidelity prototype for you to view and play around with, if it isn't working click here. If you have any suggestions or questions feel free to get in contact with me. Enjoy!