Hi there
I'm Carly. I'm a UX strategist and content designer.
My specialities are UX writing, software documentation, release notes, and product content.
I design through the written word to create experiences that resonate.
ADJUSTMENTS
Getting a perfect fit in the smartest way
When Focals smartglasses launched, they were exclusively available at North showrooms. Our unique and custom sizing process made visiting a showroom a requirement—a huge barrier to potential customers living outside of Toronto or Brooklyn. Even if a customer could complete their sizing appointment successfully, they needed to come back for an optician fitting. Two, unique visits to showrooms became cumbersome to customers, so our product teams began to devise a way to bring Focals to doorsteps.
Leveraging the TrueDepth camera, we were able to bring a version of our sizing process to iPhone X devices across North America. A huge win for our customers, but it meant that expert optician fitting would be a thing of the past. And without fitting and adjustments, customers wouldn’t be able to see their display the way it was designed for them.
We needed to guide customers through completing their own adjustments so they could get up-and-running with their smartest pair of glasses—right out of the box.
My Roles:
Content Strategist
Design Lead
Research Lead
SUMMARY
Using content-first design, we produced two guided videos to help new customers adjust Focals and get started. I was able to simplify the adjustment process by working with opticians directly and testing our content for usability.
Understanding eyewear
Adjustments might be a familiar concept to those who wear prescription glasses, but the term “Adjustments” takes a new meaning with the Focals product.
Typically, opticians will adjust glasses for comfort. While comfort is definitely a factor in adjustments for Focals, the unique display technology projects a tiny hologram into a precise point for your eye to see. Because pupils expand and contract, you can imagine that this projection becomes difficult to see in direct sunlight or bright environments.
Focals Adjustments go beyond comfort to ensure the correct positioning for your Focals display. Without adjustments, it’s possible that your display wouldn’t be within your field of view or worse: you wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.
I started this project by interviewing and working with our North opticians to understand how they adjust Focals. I visited a North showroom, took notes, completed adjustments on my own glasses, and drafted preliminary steps on how to adjust.
Content-first design
My next steps were to present the initial draft to product managers and start prototyping content. The document was reviewed and optician approved, but product managers still had a lot of feedback and suggestions.
Some of this feedback was extremely helpful, but most of it revolved around capturing obscure scenarios and separating hardware onboarding (adjustments) and software onboarding for Focals. Their reasoning was it was perhaps too disjointed and created more friction than there needed to be. Would documenting everything that could go wrong and separating adjustments from the rest of onboarding be the best for the user? I decided to test to find out.
I came up with 3 prototype adjustment documents:
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An extremely detailed step-by-step document with edge cases captured (10 pages in length)
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A 7-step document with photos on how to adjust
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A 5-step document with GIFs on how to adjust
I tested the prototypes across a group of 10 users. I was most interested in whether they were able to complete the adjustments successfully, if they used the resources provided, and if they found the resources helpful or confusing.
Users tested with Document 1 typically scanned the first couple pages before opting to just self-teach themselves adjustments. They were eager to pick up the glasses and start adjusting and didn’t want to sift through a lengthy list of warnings and cautionary tales. As a result, these users only adjusted one component on the glasses (temple arms). Both the temple arms and nose pads need to be adjusted for display visibility.
Document 2 users had a much easier time realizing there are two adjustable parts on Focals. 7 steps were a much more approachable method. When fit issues came up, the text provided reassurance and visuals allowed excited users to skip the text all together.
We realized how powerful video assets could be when we tested Document 3. There’s a step where users will need to reposition Focals in order to see UI for the first time and help guide final adjustments. Some users were able to understand this from images alone, but a quick GIF I recorded of myself made all the difference. We had a 100% adjustment success rate.
Armed with this data, I pushed for my content-first design approach. It made the most sense for our customers to have quick steps to adjust. I recommended a combination of written steps and two video guides—one for adjustments, the other for software onboarding—to help customers in a way that’s most helpful to them.
Lessons learned
If you’re ever unsure about the best design approach, prototype and test your content. Had we not tested an option with video/GIFs, our customers’ success rate would not be as high and our support team would have seen an immense increase in requests from frustrated users.
I’m glad we took the time to design the content our customers needed—not the content we thought our customers needed. The result? Approachable, engaging instructions .