AVVO Project
OVERVIEW
Avvo helps people connect with the right lawyer through industry leading content, tools, and services. Users can ask legal questions and get them answered for free by a lawyer (usually within 12 hours of posting). Currently, users are not using the Q&A forms correctly and often are posting low quality questions or something that isn't a question at all.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Avvo has observed that their Q&A form isn’t consistently assisting users in writing quality questions. This negatively impacts user experience for multiple audiences (askers, browsers, and lawyers).
How might we enhance the Q&A form so that higher quality questions are asked based on a rubric that defines question quality?
MY ROLE
In this three-week long team project, my teammates were Ale Gonzales and Sam Heckman. Ale was responsible for interaction design and worked on sketching and mockups in SketchApp. Sam was our primary researcher and was responsible for researching the best practices in a Q&A form and also sketched and created a lo-fi prototype of a chatbot.
As project manager, I focused on the overall approach to solving the clients' problem and thinking of the most effective methods to reach our deliverables. I also was the primary design communicator and particiapted in prototyping where my design was chosen for the final deliverable. In client meetings throughout the project I would answer many of the clients' questions and also I primarily presented my teams' ideas in the presentation.
But before the project started, I looked at the brief the clients filled out and using that information I created our meeting kickoff agenda. On my agenda, I brainstormed what questions my team would need to be clarified for us to define the real problem Avvo wanted us to solve.
I also created and maintained a team project schedule. I marked all deliverable deadlines and also helped devise the best approach to meet those deadlines.
THE PROCESS
QUALITY RUBRIC
After defining the problem, our next challenge was defining what a good question entails. While my teammates were researching UI patterns and doing a competitive analysis, I started to delve into linguistics and the making of a good question. In my research, I found that there were four main components that contribute to a good question: grammar conventions, readability, prior knowledge, value, and focus.
My quality rubric was used to score arbitrary questions on Avvo on a scale of 4-20. This rubric could be used after iterations to the Q+A form as another measurement of success in increasing the quality of questions on Avvo.
DESIGN STUDIOS
While I participated in both design studios, my main role was organizing ideas and summarizing them. As manager I thought design studios were particularly useful for meeting the clients' goals. Avvo wanted as many features as possible that they could quickly test. The design studio allow all of us quickly brainstorm and narrow down as many ideas as we could.
ITERATIONS
Ale (interaction designer) sketched out many of the ideas we collectively thought about, and I would often look at her sketches and give her ideas for iterations throughout the entire design process. As project manager, I would view all of my teammate's work before we showed the client and would offer suggestions or a new perspective.
PAPER PROTOTYPE
One of the user problems I noticed was that users were not putting their question in the question for field. Users were often putting a title or topic there instead. One way I believed this could be solved was by only showing the user one question at a time. I ideated and created the paper prototype below, with the long sheet acting as a scrolling sheet.
At each step of the Q+A form, the user would only see one question plus tips and examples for creating a good question. I took my prototype to the clients and we did dot voting. This simplified and focused new UI appealed to the clients and was used in the team's final hi-fi prototype with added features from previous prototypes. My teammate, Ale, was responsible for taking my paper prototype and making it in SketchApp.
ITERATIONS
Ale (interaction designer) sketched out many of the ideas we collectively thought about, and I would often look at her sketches and give her ideas for iterations throughout the entire design process. As project manager, I would view all of my teammate's work before we showed the client and would offer suggestions or a new perspective.
PRESENTATION
My final deliverable was meticulously creating and mainly presenting the presentation to Avvo. My presentation clearly and thoroughly led the audience through my team's design process and final prototype.
I think that in the future I could devise a plan faster in the beginning of the project instead of making the plan week by week.
RETROSPECTIVE
It was useful to have Avvo’s team tell us which features of our prototypes were feasible. Being project manager also enhanced my leadership skills. Sam and Ale, my teammates, both have a lot of experience with managing projects in the past, and I was able to learn a lot from them. As for next steps in the project, we wish we could actually be there to see the A/B testing implemented. Also, we wish we could further explore the chatbot and working on the flow that users primarily take to get to ask a question.