One of our group members is taking SYDE 548 - User-Centered Design with Dr. Carolyn MacGregor as a TE this term.
They have used our Menopatch project to exercise UCD skills, such as stakeholder mapping, persona development, and ethical user research safaris.
Here is a slightly abridged version of that document:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NE2n9TEkpw4MEeY6YUtt_fdYyR7nYOaG/view?usp=sharing
This research gave us a better understanding and more formal way to model our primary users (menopausal hot flash sufferers). We were also able to get insight into other potential users (ex. cyclists who face risk of heat exhaustion). The information found aligned with our problem space research from 4A, which is reassuring (see below):
Today, a workshop related to the User Research course was held to get a sense of usability problems the design may have. Classmates roleplayed as the different primary personas and our team member facilitated test tasks while noting completion rates/common points of failure. Other members of the class took note of what the users gave feedback on after testing, acting as reporters during this workshop exercise.
This was the mock-up shown to the users:
Please note that this is a preliminary design, and that the firmware team has yet to finalize user control inputs.
Though at this point, some usability improvements may not be feasible due to the timeline and remaining budget of the project, this was a cool extension/next steps exploration of the product. If another run of boards were to be fabricated, some of these changes would definitely be implemented.
Some ideas to redesign the product for better usability included (should out to the W24 SYDE 548 class!):