Google home mini college usage research
SI622 Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation Course
TEAM: Tori Cox, Bonnie Lee, Yu Qin, Katy Madier, Ruchi Ookalkar
UX Researcher
INTRO
NEEDS ASSESSMENTS
The overarching scope of our project is to conduct an in-depth evaluation of the perception, usability, and utility of the Google Home Mini by students at the University of Michigan.
Research Question:
How college students will use this device?
Our main research questions will focus on feature discovery and usability analysis in order to better understand how college students will use this device. Additionally, we are interested in evaluating how a student’s living environment (shared apartment, single apartment, or dorm) affect the way the mini is utilized. These questions will be explored through a series of research reports which will include: detailed interviews, usability tests, and evaluations of other comparative products on the market.
Interaction Map
System Evaluation
Key Interaction Paths - organized by user goals (students) - Entertainment, Work/Study/Schedule, Commute
Interview
Our team aims to establish the understanding of how college students interact with technology
in order to gain insight into how they could utilize a smart speaker in their daily activities.
To better understand student behaviors and their use of technology, we conducted 5 interviews with students at the University of Michigan. Subsequently, we used an affinity diagram to analyze and aggregate related findings from the interviews which provided insight into our primary research questions.
Method
-
Recruiting: Potential Users - students that fit population criteria.
-
Interview Process: 20-45 minutes, 1 note taker, 1 audio recording
-
Demographics: Ages 20-29, 5 different majors, 4 masters & 1 bachelor
-
Data Analysis: Affinity Diagram, three personas.
Conclusions
our research found that the main limitations for college students using the Google Home Mini may be the lack of device mobility and social communication features. Our next phases of research will investigate the actuality of these potential limitations through the use of a survey and later a usability study.
Comparative Evaluation
Analysis of Speaker Quality and Voice Recognition Among Smart Speakers and other audio devices.
We evaluated competitors of the Google Home Mini, a low-priced smart speaker, through comparative evaluation methods. Our process was comprised of identifying research questions then collecting and analyzing data.
This evaluation is focused on the following research questions, which were determined by stakeholder feedback and user interviews:
-
How does the speaker quality compare across competing products?
-
How does the voice recognition capabilities compare across competing products?
-
How does the microphone quality compare across competing products?
We Identified 10 competing products based on similar functionality, usability, price, and size to the Google Home Mini. We then evaluated each product on 10 metrics that to helped answer the overarching research questions. These metrics related to functionality of the hardware, speaker quality, software capabilities, and consumer ratings.
Usability Tests
Survey
Our team deployed a survey and analyzed data aimed at
understanding the needs and expectations of college students at the University of Michigan.
The goal is to gather insights into the following research questions, which have been informed by our user interviews, competitive analysis study and stakeholder feedback:
-
What influences student purchasing behaviors?
-
What are students' expectations of smart speaker sound quality?
-
How do students consume media on different devices?
-
How do college students prefer to discover new features?
Our team piloted and distributed the surveys to college students through University of Michigan email lists and university facebook group channels. A total of 100 college students responded to the survey. Our respondents are distributed equally among undergraduate and graduate students in different schools. However, the great majority of respondents did not own a Google Home Mini. Only 7 students are current Google Home Mini users.
We then evaluated our survey data to glean answers to our research questions. From the analysis, we found the following insights:
-
Living situation may be correlated to students’ willingness to buy a smart speaker.
-
The voice recognition capabilities of the Google Home Mini don’t satisfy current student’s needs while students still have high expectations that it will work well.
-
Students prefer to discover features through email, app notifications, and articles, but hardly ever share this information themselves.
-
Media Consumption is associated with a specific devices.
Heuristic Evaluation
Nielsen's Heuristic Principles
Google Home Mini is a smart speaker with Google Voice Assistant technology. To assess the overall usability, our team used Nielsen's Heuristic Principles. Each team member evaluated the system based on these principles individually and then came together to discuss the key areas of improvement. Our overarching research questions driving this study were:
-
Will the Google Home Mini understand the user’s accent?
-
At what range can the Google Home Mini hear the user?
-
Would the Google Home Mini understand the difference between roommates’ voices?
-
Will the Google Home Mini be a more efficient tool for college students?
Through our Heuristic Evaluation we found that:
-
The mini scored well in accessibility, consistency, and prevention, and understood most accents tested.
-
It was difficult for the testers to navigate through the mini system, and it failed to understand the difference between some tester’s voices.
-
The device did not provide sufficient feedback for many tasks, and testers found that the mini was not as efficient as a smartphone for some activities.
Usability Tests
To assess the overall usability of the device by a college student our team conducted five usability tests. We conducted a data logging procedure for each test to analyze the findings and came together to discuss the major usability problems found in these tests.
Method
-
Target Population: the University of Michigan Student and Google Home Mini Users
-
Recruiting: Email Questionnaire + $10 gift card
-
Demographics: Age 23-29, Graduate Students, School of Information & School of Pharmacy
Conclusions
In conclusions, the data we collected after analyzing the Google Mini for usability problems reveals that the mini succeeds in maintaining a consistent personality which might delight it’s users. However, the device can improve in terms of user control through the incorporation of natural conversational capabilities. The next step of our research will be to examine the capabilities of the system during Usability Tests.
