OwlSense
CHALLENGE
For our final capstone project, our team was tasked by Scotiabank Digital Factory, to develop a digital solution that would help make Canadians financially better off.
Timeline: January 2019 - March 2019
Team: Esther Lee, Kimly Truong, Peter Lin, Tameika Elliot, Krisika Suthan (myself)
My Role: User Researcher, UX/UI Designer
Tools: Sketch, InDesign, IBIS World, Marketline
The Problem
Our team took an untraditional approach to this problem by looking at online financial security in Canada. The following statistics are provided by the Competition Bureau of Canada in 2017.
From January 2014 to December 2016, it is estimated that Canadians lost over $290 million to fraudsters.
In 2016 alone, online scams accounted for more than 20,000 complaints and more than $40 million in losses by Canadians
Only about five percent of fraud gets reported to authorities, which means that law enforcement agencies have a harder time staying ahead of the game
Online scams continue to persist as technology and access to the Internet grows. In the past decade, many Canadians have made the transition over from traditional banking to online banking. When this is the case, it is important to look at online digital security and why Canadians are becoming victims to fraudulent behaviour.
PERSONAS
During the initial stages of development, we were under the assumption that people fell victim to online scams as a result of age, language, or technological proficiency. However, after extensive research into the nature of cybercrime, our team came to the realization that it is common for the everyday user to fall victim to fraudulent behaviour. To understand our users better, we divided ‘Canadians’ into three sub-personas, each of which differ based on their comfortability with technology. The three levels of technology are as follows; high-proficiency, medium-proficiency and low-proficiency.
To verify and flush-out our personas we conducted one round of user interviews with ten participants. To encompass the ‘Canadian’ identity, we chose participants who came from different cultures, occupations and age groups.
IDEATION AND RESEARCH
To arrive at solution that satisfies the user’s needs, wants and obstacles, our team used various brainstorming activities and methods to research the problem-space. This includes, user-interviews, lightning demos, crazy-8’s and a strategy canvas. One interview revealed insight into how Tamil-Canadian immigrants use social media to avoid fraudulent behaviour. The user mentioned that he was a part of a Whatsapp group, in which members of the Tamil community would alert one another of scams. This sparked the idea to explore “community” as a solution for cybersecurity.
The application of the Strategy Canvas helped reveal areas of innovation and improvement. We looked at cybersecurity companies located in the Greater Toronto Area and compared them to one another. Through this analysis we found that several companies offered services to detect online threats through Hybrid-AI for medium-to-large sized businesses. This service was not offered for individuals who did not belong to a major organization. This insight was the second piece to our puzzle, that ignited a strong brainstorming session within our team.
THE SOLUTION
OwlSense provides Canadians with a two-in-one solution to cybersecurity. The solution combines both Hybrid-AI fraud detection and community through a plugin and a public forum. The plugin uses a combination of artificial intelligence and human verification to scan through a user’s email and alert them of any suspicious or malicious activity. When a user is alerted of a scam, they then have the ability to report it to the forum in order to alert other users in their community and seek advice to resolve the issue. Together the plugin and forum work together to generate a database that tracks all malicious activity happening in Canada. With further iterations the plugin will be able to detect fraud on other online sites such as social media and e-commerce.
USER JOURNEY MAP
OwlSense was brought to life with many rounds of user testing, iteration and systemic thinking. Our team began this process by outlining the user’s journey. This initial step allowed us to understand the user’s motivations, feelings and experiences which provided direction for the final design of our product.
LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPING
Once our ideas were unified, we began developing low-fidelity wireframes using a combination of paper and Sketch. At this stage we began conducting several rounds of user-testing to test the user’s understanding of our plugin, registration and forum. The tests were quick and dirty to get immediate results at every stage of development.
MID FIDELITY PROTOTYPING
Sample screens from the mid fidelity prototypes. The three samples follow three distinct user journeys; reading the forum, setting preferences, and using the plugin.
USABILITY TESTING
For relevant insights I conducted two rounds of user testing with three participants. I specifically tested the usability of the Forum and user scenarios to guide the participants through the journey. AB testing was also used to test the functionality of displaying posts. The following image is a sample of the ‘posts’ I used for AB testing.
DESIGN LIBRARY
During the final stage of production, I developed a design library consisting of fonts, colours, input fields, buttons and icons. This library insured consistency amongst all the designs and allowed our team to be more efficient. While designing the library I made sure to consult my team to determine what components were relevant to our design.
final prototype
Through iterative design, user testing and systemic thinking, our team was able to conceptualize OwlSense. The following screens are sample images from the Forum user journey. To interact with the full product including the plugin and sign-up process feel free to walk through our InVision prototype :)
Invision Prototype: https://invis.io/YARCZ92FR8C#/356192969_Forum_00_-_Guest
retrospective
From defining a problem, determining an appropriate and viable solution, to developing a final prototype, working on OwlSense allowed me to explore the different roles and responsibilities of a user experience designer.
Learning Outcome: Consider the Business Model
As a requirement for the capstone, our team needed to consider the business model and how our product would generate revenue. When designing for hackathons, school, and passion projects money is rarely a constraint on the design process. This challenge forced me to thoroughly consider the monetary-value and user-experience-value of different features. By doing so, our team was able to determine the minimum viable product and core components of OwlSense.
Learning Outcome: Ideation requires Trial & Error
Creating a viable solution to this problem was challenging. It required not only active brainstorming but also research into what currently exists in-and-outside of cybersecurity. I found that during this process I would often-times become attached to ideas which would limit my thinking. For example, I was stuck to the idea of using wearable technology which prevented from thinking in a more broad context. Through this project, I had to learn to be comfortable with letting go of ideas in order to explore new ones.