Setting the Topic

I always loved maps and trip planning. In COVID times, when travel was limited but daydreaming was still allowed, I wanted to find out how easy it was for people to use one of my favorite applications, Google Maps.

In a preliminary survey, I was interested in what people use Google Maps for, what feature is the most important to them, and what they like and dislike about the application. I conducted a short questionnaire with Google Forms, posted it on my social media, and received 37 responses.

Survey findings showed that respondents are fond of features that support exploring. They mentioned saving locations, daydreaming, discovering places nearby, and creating maps for road trips amongst their favorite things about Google Maps. That sparked my interest in the experience of exploring on Google Maps and how it could be better. Research would allow my imaginary team mates (since this was a school project), such as designers and product managers to come up with elements they would add or change in the product to support and improve users experience.

Research questions: 

-       How easy or difficult is it to create a travel plan with Google Maps in an unknown area?

-       How easy/difficult it is to share that plan with someone else?

Participants

• Frequent users

I focused on frequent or occasional Google Maps users (using the app at least every month or more frequently). I imagined it would be very difficult to find non-users, so I focused on those who are familiar with the app.

• Five participants, different age groups and gender, different locations

I recruited five participants, one from each of the following age groups: 16-25 years of age, 26-35, 36-45 and 56+, also making sure they are not all of the same sex. This was done in order to avoid having a homogenous sample.

Since I was researching usability of the app, sources suggested five users should be enough to uncover the biggest challenges users are faced with when using an app or website. Given the time limitation of 3 weeks, I expected organizing sessions and carrying out usability testing with more than 5 participants would be difficult.

I sampled users in different locations because I expected Google Maps features to work a little differently in different parts of the world. Location of participant could have turned out to be important for the way the task plays out, so I wanted to avoid testing in a single location.

• Recruiting participants

To recruit participants for usability testing, I reached out to frequent users who have filled out my survey online, to coworkers and to family members.

Insights

I noted the issues participants encountered in sessions, and organized the issues by priority (high, mid and low level priority). To define the priority levels, I followed Jeff Sauro's severity levels, combined with how frequently the issue occurred.

HIGH priority:

• No high priority issues were found.

MEDIUM priority:

• Two out of five participants participants were not aware that they can use the search bar in Google Maps in the same way they would on google.com.

LOW priority:

• Looking up non-specific locations took a participant to their home location very far away.

• Participants struggled when they didn’t know the name of location.

• Participants couldn’t find their saved places in the menu.

RecommendationS:

• Add “Send to friend” option.

• Evaluate Nearby button. Opportunity for an eye tracking study?

• Asses ways to make nearby function more prominent.

• Users mentioned they would head to google.com first. How important is the search function for non-specific location? Evaluate!

Delivery

I delivered the presentation of my research findings to both in PowerPoint and in a pre-recorded video presentation, using Loom software.

Future Directions

In a hypothetical scenario, where I am superhuman and work for Google, the next steps would be to:

1. Meet with stakeholders (Product Managers, Engineers, Designers), share findings and discuss recommendations.

2. Apply research insights for medium priority issues and repeat usability testing, repeat with low priority issues.

3. Collect additional feedback post-launch with a survey: “Tell us what you think about the new Google Maps” button.

Plan for engaging stakeholders:

• Meetings: Weekly with immediate stakeholders (Product Managers, Designers) share research progress. Optional listen-in for Google Maps engineers.

• Knowledge sharing: Once a month remote knowledge-sharing session for anyone at the company. Share findings on internal company blog, time permitting.

• Building “UXR fans” community: Create UX resources and UXR AMA (Ask Me Anything) Slack channels.

Reflections

How realistic was my scenario of searching for castles in Czech Republic, that I chose as a task for usability testing? Many participants mentioned they would first use Google’s search engine to research destinations and then simply type the names into Google Maps when planning trips.
This means using two separate applications. But is integrating location research into Google Maps a sound decision? Does it serve users when they want to visit a decent castle near them that is open?

This personal project lacked what the first step in my UX research would be: talking to stakeholders to understand what the business question is. Business question leads to a research question, and a research answer should lead to a business answer. Those stepping stones would help me identify if we are asking the right question in the first place.