HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

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HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics                                                HCDE 593: Capstone, Spring 2013, Seattle, WA

                                                              HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi
                                                              2014 Winter Olympics

                                                              Chih-Wei Chen                         Abstract
                                                                                                    HTC Ice will be the official communication device for
                                                              University of Washington
                                                                                                    the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The
                                                              Human-Centered Design & Engineering
                                                                                                    purpose of this project is to understand the needs of
                                                              cweichen@uw.edu                       target user groups and design a User Interface (UI) for
                                                                                                    HTC Ice to enrich users’ visiting experience of the event
                                                                                                    through the device. In this paper, we briefly present
                                                              Yina Shin                             the iterative design processes we went involved in for
                                                              University of Washington
                                                                                                    HTC Ice including user research activities, prototyping,
                                                                                                    and usability testing. Finally, we present the Olympics-
                                                              Human-Centered Design & Engineering
                                                                                                    exclusive UI solution for HTC Ice that incorporates user
                                                              yina@uw.edu                           needs and requirements that we aggregated from each
                                                                                                    design process.

                                                              Hang Yu                               Author Keywords
                                                              University of Washington              HTC Ice; Winter Olympics; User Interfaces
                                                              Human-Centered Design & Engineering
                                                              spellyu@uw.edu                        ACM Classification Keywords
    Figure 1: HTC Ice User Interface
                                                                                                    H.5.2. [User Interfaces]: Input devices and strategies.

                                                                                                    Introduction
                                                                                                    This paper presents the Olympics-exclusive UI solution
                                                                                                    for HTC Ice, the official communication device for the
                                                                                                    2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Combined with
                                                                                                    its solid industrial design, our purpose is to enhance
                                                                                                    HTC Ice by designing an innovative Android-based UI
                                                                                                    solution that will fulfill necessities of all international
                                  Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
                                                                                                    audiences, who will be will be visiting Sochi, Russia to
                                  HCDE 593 Capstone Final Report, June 12, 2013, Seattle, WA.
                                                                                                    attend the 2014 Winter Olympics.
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics                                     HCDE 593: Capstone, Spring 2013, Seattle, WA

                             Target Users                                                User Research
                             Among the major target user groups who are involved         Our user research was divided mainly into three parts –
                             in the Olympics event – athletes, staff, officials,         literature review on previous work, secondary data
                             hospitality workers, and audiences, we chose to focus       collection from anonymous groups of people from
                             on international audience. The main reason for our          online forums or communities who had visited the
                             decision is that we noted desperate needs for a reliable    previous Olympics events, and semi-structured phone
                             communication solution from international travellers        interview on five participants who visited the previous
                             during their visit to the games event. According to the     Olympics events, such as the Beijing 2008 Olympics
                             consumer survey conducted by Informa Telecoms &             and the London 2012 Olympics.
                             Media during the 2012 London Olympics [1], 52 percent
                             of non-UK visitors expressed their concerns about           Card Sorting Study
                             running up a large phone bill during the event and 47       With all the results collected from our literature review,
                             percent of them acquired a UK SIM card. As being the        secondary data collection, and interviews, we used the
                             official communication device for the 2014 Winter           card sorting method to categorize our user
                             Olympics, this will be a great opportunity for HTC to       requirements into seven categories: Tickets, Game
                             provide an innovative communication solution for the        Information, Travelling Information, Transportation
                             Olympics event and allure potential users with their        Information, Accommodation, News, and Social
                             feature-enriched products.                                  Networking Services (SNS).

                             Design Processes                                            Take-away Points
                             There are four stages to this project, which also cover     Based on our findings and card-sorting study, there are
                             several sub-disciplines of human-centered design            four take-away points from this user research.
                             including user research, ideation, prototyping, and
                             evaluation. In the first stage, a user research was         1. Ticket related issues were the most common
                             conducted to understand our potential users,                problem encountered for international audience. They
                             international audiences. In the second stage, several       were in need for some kind of platform to buy, sell, and
                             versions of the hand-sketched (see Figure 2) and            exchange event tickets. It would also be truly beneficial
                             computer-aided low-fidelity prototypes of the UI system     if they can obtain electronic tickets (e-tickets) on their
                             were created. In the third stage, a usability study was     smartphone.
                             conducted to test the printed versions of our low-
                             fidelity prototypes. In the final stage of the project, a   2. International audience wanted accurate and
                             high-fidelity prototype was created using commercial        customizable game information, such as the latest and
Figure 2. Hand-Sketched      prototyping software, Axure. In the following sections,     personalized game schedule, personal reminder,
Paper Prototype              we discuss the four stages respectively.                    interactive site maps, real-time broadcasting, etc. The
                                                                                         UI system should provide detailed game information
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics                                           HCDE 593: Capstone, Spring 2013, Seattle, WA

                                and fulfill all users’ necessities before, during, and after   e-Ticket Platform
                                the games.                                                     For the ticket feature, we focused on selling and buying
                                                                                               e-tickets. The users will have options to buy e-tickets
                                3. The UI system should also accommodate visitors’             either from the official Olympics site, or HTC Ice e-
                                daily life essentials when they are visiting foreign           Ticket platform, an exclusive e-ticket marketplace only
                                country. The daily life essentials can be                      available for the HTC Ice users. This opportunity will
                                accommodation, travelling, transportation, and news.           enable the HTC Ice users to buy game tickets possibly
                                Fulfilling these basic needs should enhance their visiting     at a lower rate from other HTC Ice users. In addition,
                                experience to the host country of the event.                   basic ticketing features such as viewing purchased
                                                                                               tickets and the game/stadium information of the
                                4. Our participants did not emphasize on the                   purchased tickets are available.
                                importance of social networking services. A possible
                                reason is that smartphones and social networking               Push Notification
                                services had not gained worldwide popularity at the            Performed in conjunction with the Personalized
                                time of their visit. However, the connection between           Scheduler and e-Ticket Platform features, the Push
                                smartphones and social networking services are closely         Notification notifies user with upcoming events and
                                related nowadays and should not be ignored.                    suggests alternate event options if user misses their
                                                                                               scheduled events. The push notification also allows
                                Low-Fidelity Prototypes                                        users to sell their game tickets through HTC’s exclusive
                                In previous user research activities, we noted high            e-Ticket platform if user cannot attend the game they
                                participant interest in easiness of acquiring game             purchased. They can also be informed if other HTC Ice
                                tickets and being notified with game schedules with            users want to buy the tickets the user wants to sell.
                                accurate game/stadium information. Thus, we created
                                low-fidelity prototype (using PowerPoint) for two main         Usability Study
                                features that can incorporate most of the user needs           In an effort to build a solid interactive high-fidelity
                                we observed – Personal Scheduler and e-Ticket                  prototype that incorporates the two main features we
                                Platform with Push Notification (see Figure 3).                discussed previously, we figured that the iterative
                                                                                               design approach would be a great practical method for
                                Personalized Scheduler                                         the purpose of our project. Thus, our usability testing
                                The landing page for scheduler is in the format of hour-       was divided mainly into three phases: pilot usability
                                to-hour planner, providing daily game and personal             test, heuristic evaluation, and formal usability testing.
                                schedules, which are accompanied by game                       Throughout three phases in our usability study, our
                                information, traffic information, and directions on a          goal was to identify usability problems of our low-
Figure 3. Low-Fidelity          separate popup window. The scheduler also provides             fidelity prototypes and generate design
Prototype of Personalized       calendar and personalized game suggestions based on            recommendations for subsequent prototypes.
Scheduler, e-Ticket Platform,
                                user inputs and locations.
and Push Notification
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics                                       HCDE 593: Capstone, Spring 2013, Seattle, WA

                             Quantitative Analysis Results                                 Qualitative Analysis Results
                             Through our post-task survey and post-test                    According to the testing results and participants’
                             questionnaire, we collected quantitative data from our        suggestions, we needed to improve our e-Ticket
                             participants, including satisfaction level of each feature,   Platform in the following aspects:
                             System Usability Scale (SUS) scores for our low-fidelity
                             prototypes of the HTC Ice User Interface, and expected        • The checkout process should be simplified and have
                             and experienced difficulty level on each task.                  less pages.
                                                                                           • Menus and buttons should be consistent.
                             The participants’ satisfaction level of each feature was      • Seat number should be modified so it clearly indicates
                             all above 3 in a 5-point Likert scale (n = 2) and the           it is clickable.
                             average SUS score was 83.13 (n = 4). The results              • Clickable and non-clickable areas should be clearly
                             indicated that our low-fidelity prototypes of the UI            distinguished.
                             system had decent usability. However, from our
                             expected and experienced difficulty rating data (n = 3),      We needed to improve our Personalized Scheduler in
                             which was collected and analyzed based on the method          the following aspects:
                             presented by Albert and Dixon in 2003 [2], several
                             features revealed some opportunities to be improved.          • Editing and deleting schedule should be
                             The results were shown in Figure 4. It shows that our           differentiated.
                             participants experienced higher difficulty levels in task     • The search, add, and delete icons in the scheduler
                             1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 than expected. It means that we               should be more self-explanatory.
                             needed to improve our features on searching game,             • Adding schedule should be completed in two clicks
                             editing wish list, buying ticket, and modifying schedule.       (remove unnecessary steps).
                                                                                           • Schedule conflicts with game times should be
                                                                                             notified.

                                                                                           We also needed to improve our Push Notification
                                                                                           feature in the following aspects:

                                                                                           • Clear guidance is needed to proceed to next page
                                                                                             from push notification.
                                                                                           • Notification description should be rephrased so it is
                                                                                             more informative to follow.
                                 Figure 4. Expected and Experienced Difficulty on Tasks
                                            (1=Very Easy; 5=Very Difficult)
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics                                        HCDE 593: Capstone, Spring 2013, Seattle, WA

                                High-Fidelity Prototype                                     color make HTC Ice the first Olympics official
                                The major transformation we made between the low-           communication device that is enriched with the
                                fidelity prototype and the high-fidelity prototype is       Olympics-exclusive features and designs.
                                enhancing the prototype with colors, design themes
                                and logos from the Sochi Olympics, and interactions.        Discussion and Conclusion
                                The high-fidelity prototype has been implemented using      In this paper, we presented the UI solution for HTC Ice
                                Axure to ensure smooth transition between the UI            that is concentrated in the two main features, e-Ticket
                                screens and features.                                       Platform and Personalized Scheduler enriched with Push
                                                                                            Notification that we implemented according to our user
                                Features and Interactions                                   research findings. The features and their functionalities
                                Based on the usability testing results, the major           were tested by seven participants and evaluators and
                                insights we observed from our participants were, UI         the average SUS score for the overall impression of the
                                should be simple and self-explanatory. Thus, we             HTC Ice UI was 83.13, which indicates “good” UI
                                merges one or two steps during the buying ticket            System (as suggested [3]). None of them experienced
                                process into one page and simplified some of the            any high level of difficulties completing the tasks during
                                features in the scheduler such as daily tasks and           the usability testing and heuristic evaluation. They also
                                today’s game list. We also implemented consistent           commented that the features are intuitive and useful
                                menu bars at the bottom of all screens for easy             and definitely serve the purpose for the Olympics
                                navigation and a quick access to main menus in each         event. Additionally, they answered they are willing to
                                feature. Lastly, in an effort to provide self-explanatory   use HTC Ice during their visits to Sochi.
                                UI, we added color-coded strips in the daily task screen
                                to differentiate different types of tasks, and icons        Possible future work may include expanding the
                                during the buying ticket process to emphasize clickable     number of features to the full spectrum at five to six to
                                fields (see Figure 5).                                      compromise other user needs and requirements we
                                                                                            observed from our user research activities, which had
                                Design Theme                                                to be eliminated due to the time constraint. In addition,
                                The colorful patchwork design theme from the official       as brought up in the User Research section, the social
                                website of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics was               networking app for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
                                adopted into the UI for HTC Ice as shown in the third       designed by the HCDE undergraduate students, would
                                image of Figure 5. We especially focused on the color       be another great addition to HTC Ice. The full spectrum
                                blue since blue belongs to the cool shade that              of features combined with the socializing feature would
                                represents water and ice. In addition, we designed the      further elevate the quality of HTC Ice as the first official
Figure 5. High Fidelity         home screen menus different from other Android              Olympics communication device that is loaded with true
Prototype of Personalized       platforms, featuring the three-dimensional ice cube         Olympics-exclusive UI.
Scheduler, e-Ticket Platform,
                                menu that can roll by swiping the shape on the screen
and Push Notification
                                (see Figure 1). This kind of unique design theme and
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics                              HCDE 593: Capstone, Spring 2013, Seattle, WA

                             Acknowledgements
                             We thank our instructors Julie Kientz and Andrew
                             Davidson, HTC’s point of contact Yihsiu Chen, and our
                             teaching assistant Katie Derthick for their valuable
                             advice and constant help and support on this capstone
                             project. We also thank our participants, evaluators, and
                             peers for their suggestions and feedback during user
                             research, mid-term critique, heuristic evaluation,
                             usability test, UW HCDE Open House, and final
                             presentation.

                             References
                             [1] High customer satisfaction during London Olympic
                             Games. Informa Telecoms & Media.
                             http://www.telecoms.com/77241/high-customer-satisfaction-
                             during-london-olympic-games/
                             [2] Bangor, A., Kortum, P. T., and Miller, J. T. An
                             empirical evaluation of the system usability scale.
                             International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction
                             24, 6 (2008), 574-594.

                             [3] Albert, W. and Dixon, E. Is this what you expected?
                             The use of expectation measures in usability testing.
                             In Proceedings of the Usability Professionals Association
                             Conference (2003).
HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics HTC Ice: Official Smartphone for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
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