2019-2020
PRC-Saltillo supports people with disabilities, providing them with a voice when the user cannot talk or even move much of their body. By providing speech generating devices (SGD's) that leverage head- or eye-tracking technology, PRC's users can communicate through an icon-based vocabulary which is "spoken" by a portable PC. To learn more about augmentative communication and speech generating devices at PRC, click here.
At the time of diagnosis, most ALS patients have typical control over body movement and their vocal cords. Knowing that ALS will cause degradation of these functions over time, it is a common to want to “save” messages recorded in a patient's own voice to be used on a speaking device after the voice is lost. In 2019, PRC's product team determined the time was right to incorporate a Message Banking function in their core speech generating application.
Former NFL star Steve Gleason using a speech-generating device to communicate with his son
During this phase of the project, our team:
Reviewed competitive products,
Interviewed client product owners, stakeholders and prospective users with ALS,
Engaged the client to define priorities through an interactive workshop,
Iterated on sketches and wireframes to define a UI and flow to accomplish objectives as defined in the workshop,
Designed and built a web-based application to capture and store recorded voice messages for users with ALS, and
Designed and built a PC-based component as part of PRC's core product to import and play these messages through the speech generating device's "vocabulary".
These deliverables were then presented at the annual industry conference, CAM, to collect additional feedback from consumers and industry experts which would be used to guide final development efforts. What follows are some highlights of these activities.
Initially, the team scheduled interviews with product owners and stakeholders in order to define initial goals for end users including the consultants who influence sales, clinicians who train consumers to use the product during home visits, and actual ALS users.
Interviews provided context as our team organized the quarterly program increment planning workshop where there was time to focus on details of the Message Banking feature. In attendance were POs, stakeholders, product consultants (SMEs), clinicians (speech language pathologists), product managers, UX staff, developers and QAs.
With research in hand, our initial conversations focused on understanding our mission and identifying and prioritizing opportunities.
Stakeholders and team members collaborated to develop the value statement.
The entire product team was able to align on a vision for the feature and to discuss barriers to adoption, leading eventually to agreement on an opportunities map for the initiative.
...focused on defining the core function and flow for Message Banking. Attendees collaborated to define and prioritize features which would later be broken into user stories.
Defining initial user stories, organized by delivery schedule
With this information, we returned to the shop to begin sketching. Initial concepts were reviewed by UX, visual design, developers and QA in order to maintain focus and to ensure that concepts were meeting functional and quality standards and that they were "buildable". Since Message Banking was to be constructed as a responsive web application, teams maintained a constant awareness of the opportunities and challenges inherent in this model.
It was important to account for mobile and web viewports during design. The Message Banking "home" screen is shown here.
Iterating and sharing was the standard operating procedure, with updates reviewed by each of four product teams during daily scrums. Client and stakeholder reviews tended to be weekly, although any party could call for an impromptu review or ideation session. Several client POs who worked closely with the ALS population attended scrums and the occasional meet-after. Formal sprint demos brought all stakeholders together every two weeks. More formal program increment demos included PRC upper management and a larger stakeholder group.
The UX team created wireframes to support conversations with product owners, developers, and test users. Standard functions such as tagging, editing, and replaying were included in the wireframes to determine if the design met MVP requirements. Since this was a new product for PRC, the client wanted to invest the least amount of effort to bring a product to market at the industry conference.
Having received approval for the basic layout of the application, the visual design team produced several high-fidelity screens for team and client review. Final palette and visual design were approved during the course of a single sprint and assets were handed to the development team to allow for placement in the app already in progress.
Near-final wireframes with notes related to titles and tags
Approved Message Banking mobile application design
As the conference date drew closer, the UX team began working with client POs to define how users would experience PRC Message Banking. Plans included an email invitation to visit the PRC booth for a first touch of the application. Incentives were provided to insure that users would participate in a demo and survey.
More than 40 potential customers registered for and completed testing at the conference. Users provided quantitative and qualitative feedback through surveys and tabletop conversations. PRC received validation that the feature and its evolving design were on the right track.
To see the PRC device in use at the 2019 CAM conference, click here.