Midterm Brief
The simplest event can make or break your day - dropping a hat in the mud will set a chain of unfortunate events. A smile from a stranger will lift your mood and make the world seem brighter.
The interactive mundane has this power over us. Email by now is as familiar and comfortable a platform to most people as a kitchen sink. And just like a kitchen sink designed well will make cooking process a delight - or a messy nightmare if designed poorly - email can elevate or ruin some of the most typical or the daily routines.
In this project we will redesign the interactions users have with desktop email clients - your outlooks, apple mails, and windows mails. Things we all use daily and expect to work seamlessly, but that have the power to disappoint and make a mountain out of a mole. We will focus our attention on the power or microinteractions to make those digital chores easier, simpler, more enjoyable - and less noticeable. The goal is to move the task to the periphery, and to bring forward the delight of being able to communicate instantly across the globe.
Context (the technological and cultural landscape)
Chatbots
89% of internet users prefer interacting with chatbots
Personalization
89%
of businesses are investing in personalization
The Problem: Tone conveyed in an email
It is easy to misconstrue without the context you'd get from vocal cues and facial expressions. Accordingly, it's easy to come off as more abrupt than you might have intended --you meant "straightforward," they read "angry and curt."
Why this is a problem:
effective communication can be a difficult task and people may need support in saying what they mean and being understood. Also, written communication is central to achieving personal and professional objectives and goals.
effective communication can be a difficult task and people may need support in saying what they mean and being understood. Also, written communication is central to achieving personal and professional objectives and goals.
According to over 3,400 people who responded to Grammarly’s State of the workplace 2019 survey:
93% of respondents make email faux pas
50% have written something that was misunderstood by their recipient
3 out of 4 people worried about their email being misunderstood
More than ½ of people worry about using an appropriate tone
20% of people have been told the tone of their email is too aggressive
More than 1/2 of respondents read their email drafts 2–4 times before pressing send.
50 percent of respondents who said their written text has been misunderstood.
Precedents & Competitors
other apps and programs that offer a tone suggestion feature
Proposal: Tone Suggestions & Read Aloud Before Sending
Integration with IoT
Conversational AI with natural language understanding (NLU)
Flowchart
Conversational Flow
Using Butler to compose email inquiring about a Senior Interaction Design Position at Google
Prototypes
Read aloud prior to sending prototype created in Adobe XD
Butler the chatbot assistant helps Francisco reply to his work email.
Butler reads aloud the email so Francisco can hear what it sounds like before sending.
When you're in a moving vehicle, Butler will offer a hands-free way to activate voice interaction.
Concept & Methodology (how our proposal is going to work)
Further Possibilities (that could be pursued with our design solution)
Presentation Deck
The team I worked on with this presented our project to our class and a few guests on April 8, 2021. This is some of the feedback that we received:
Feedback from P.J. (IxD cohort 5):
Feedback: I’m wondering if people could create their own tones and how that would work.
My thoughts: Great idea. It would add another level of personalization.
Feedback: People might interpret tones differently.
My thoughts: Add a way to convey target tone to recipients. A note at end of email or an emoji to inform recipient(s) “this email is intended to be funny” 😂
Feedback from Nicole (class guest, SMC faculty lead IxD)
Feedback: What about the assholes out there?
My thoughts: I’m not sure exactly what Nicole meant by this.🤷🏼♀️ Would she want tone suggestions to help her sound more like an asshole? Or tone suggestion when composing an email to said assholes.🤔
Feedback from Luke (class guest SMC IxD professor)
Feedback: You guys could have had a lot of fun with this and gotten a little crazy.
My thoughts: I agree and think we would have had we spent more time brainstorming as a team.
Feedback from Amanda (class guest, SMC IxD academic counselor)
Feedback: “I always include emojis in emails no matter who I’m writing to because I get so anxious about the recipient interpreting my email wrong”
My thoughts: I’d like to conduct user testing to see if and to what degree tone suggestions would alleviate Amanda’s anxiety.
Feedback from Cole (IxD cohort 5)
Feedback: “I’m wondering how this would work with the IoT and the issue of privacy.”
My thoughts: I don’t know enough about how the IoT works so will have to do some research.