User Experience & Design Research

Helping architects make greener decisions.

A team of Crown Research scientists at SCION had developed a Life Cycle Assessment tool; calculating thermal performance and environmental impact of the myriad combinations of products typically used to build NZ homes.

The tool was proposed as an online application to promote sustainable choices during the building design process.

With a potentially exciting product at concept stage, the client needed direction.

We needed to establish:
Target market – to identify who would most likely to benefit from the tool
Proof of concept - to discover how it could be of the most value to customers.

User experience strategy - to understand exactly how the end user would want to use the service and what they’d like to gain from using it.
Interaction design – to ensure both fitness for purpose and that the product interface would be intuitive to the end user.

We took a User Centred approach, carrying out qualitative customer research with architects and builders.

We built an understanding of how this tool would fit in with their natural decision making process.

We built a preliminary interactive prototype of the web interface to generate reactions from our sample.

We aimed to establish:

• Which of the potential markets are most likely to use the tool
• Their motivations, what would drive them to use it
• Which outcomes from using the tool would best serve their needs
• How and when they would use it, how it would fit into their professional routine
• The most useful format in which to display complex information to the audience
  

Insights form the research helped to shape the proposition into a product well aligned with a proven customer need:

• Demand for the product was validated and primary customer groups identified
• The purpose of the tool and context in which it would be used were validated
• Scope and functionality of the product was defined
• Core functions were prioritised to add the most value to the customer.
• Complex data was visualised in ways customers could easily digest and make use of.
• Opportunities emerged to add value to existing functionality, increasing appeal and broadening the market for the product

The client and development team were able to move forward with confidence, working to a clear and proven brief.

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Design Research - Usability - User Centred Design - Ethnography
Consumer behaviour - Customer experience

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