Custom Prototyping Tool
UX Design
Client:
Magic+Might
Role:
UX/UI Designer
Year(s):
2018
Designing for designers
Oz is a unique, internal prototyping tool built by and for the Magic+Might team to enable the quick assembly of complex, content-rich projects. Through a friendly UI, team members can rapidly build experiential concepts, each with multiple simultaneous video and audio outputs in order to create a realistic and immersive testing environment. Oz has enabled Magic+Might to dramatically improve their prototyping efficiency and versatility by promoting quick setup and iteration, while improving test accuracy and subject engagement.
Requirements by User
DesignersNeed to easily and quickly upload a variety of asset types and assign those assets to “situations.” From there, the assets can be triggered in different moments and experiences throughout a given simulated prototype.
Moderator / Research AssistantNeeds a clear and glanceable interface that displays the pre-built situations and allows them to quickly activate these triggers throughout the research protocol.
Project: A Project houses groups of prototypes used in a given research study. A research project may have multiple rounds of study, each testing different prototypes or refinements.
Round: A repeated series of 30-90 minute sessions with a pre-defined number of participants over the course of a few days. A round aims to answer a specific set of research goals that may inform refinements for a next prototype.
Prototype: A prototype is the specific interaction model or concept that is being tested with users. A prototype always belongs to a round of study. Each round can have either one or multiple prototypes depending on the nature of the research.
Environment: An environment is a configuration of specific outputs needed for a prototype. This is typically comprised of a variety of device or display sizes as well as audio speakers.
A sample Prototype page is on the left (above on mobile). Prototypes are made up of three primary tools: Asset Organizer, Outputs, and Situations.
Assets are any sort of digital stimuli needed for the research protocol. This can be a variety of images and their various states, videos, audio files, and/or URLs to Marvel or Invision click-through prototypes.
Outputs are created as places for either a video, image, or audio file to be presented. Image and video outputs are assigned dimensions to properly fit a screen. Every asset is assigned to an output. The asset is then later attached to one or multiple situations, which, when selected by the moderator, triggers the asset to display or activate on the proper output.
A situation is a single collection of assigned assets.
When a situation is created and selected from the sidebar, all of the available outputs for the prototype will display in the middle. From here, we can drag and drop any existing assets into the output.
By doing this step, we’ve configured a specific group of stimuli to one trigger point.
From a moderator panel, a situation can be triggered, which will display or play the assigned visual and/or audio assets from their outputs at that moment.
The Moderator Panel is used to trigger situations within the prototype.
The order of situations is built to follow along with the protocol tasks, helping the moderator stay focused on the conversation with the participant.
Oz was designed and built internally at Magic+Might. Creative Director Chris Marino, Executive Creative Director Jody Campbell and I collaborated throughout the duration of the project. The final tool was developed and built by Drew Doherty and Josh Campbell.