Us | Katherine Zhang

Us is an online service that will allow users to participate in user research and give user feedback in exchange of goods, as well as building an ongoing relationship with brands each participant use frequently.

In a lot of my informal conversations with developers, designers and users, I asked them about the current feedback system for mobil apps. I can’t help but question the current way of giving and receiving feedback for products that have been put out in the world. I found inefficient feedback buttons that left the users hanging when they have encountered a problem, and how it is the only way for the users to get back to product they use. I believe there are needs to be more efficient ways of bridging two groups of people. I was inspired by the idea of bring power back to the users, as a challenge to the current human-centred design method.

I sent out an online survey to students in Emily Carr University who is in different year and major. I also sent them to facebook to get to know a wider range of participants. Because I did not count their age group, gender, job title or any private information, so the result is very vague.

Understanding the 39 online survey answers in relation with my in-person interview with 3 Emily Carr Students, I got the conclusion of the biggest motivation for people to participate in user research is because they want to improve their own experience of using the product.

Other than formal interview, I joined workshops and event during the semester to expand my network and research my topic. Those workshops and meetups allows me to connect with people in the industry including designers, business owners and researchers. I am able to chat with them about my project, I gain new perspectives and got to know how the industry is doing user research and what will be valuable for them.

I spent times to think around the ethical problems in design world, and I want to share my voice by focusing the features of the project closely related to connection building as a new perspective of user testings.

People who are interested in giving feedback to an App will register as participants, they will have different tests recommended to them based on their profiles. When they complete a test they will grant an impact point for that company, they can use these points to exchange products.

If a company want to use my website to gather user feedback, they will first register themselves as Researchers. They will be able to post each testings as a recruiting post with participant requirements and selected incentive method (either privately or on platform). They can also choose to contact participants based on their approval. If they have an ongoing relationship developed with a participant, they can get more direct feedback.

This project has been a project for me to grow and explore, finding my true passion and career path as a designer. During my design process, I found interesting perspectives, I want to keep exploring the relationship between users and designer as a future thesis. In the future, I want to explore more design solution around understanding the meaning of user testings and thinking more about design ethic in their design works.

An interaction designer graduated from Emily Carr University, dedicated to create visually pleasing designs while focusing on inclusivity, meaningful impact and emotional connections.

Passion lies in creating human and earth centric design solutions for contemporary problems. Always looking for fresh insights while exploring possibilities.

http://www.katherinexz.com