I joined the team as the first mobile specific designer and we decided early on to develop native on both iOS and Android. We learned early in the prototype phase that we weren’t going to learn enough from user testing without connecting to the robot hardware. This led to the decision to stand up a working prototype as quickly as possible. To manage the scope we opted to lead with iOS/Swift development, following the HIG closely, for our initial prototype. Early designs focused on getting the content into the app and making sure users had all the necessary controls to interact with the robot. By quickly standing up a usable prototype we were able to test the most important functions of the app, connecting Jibo to WiFi and adding family members to Jibo’s memory.

Testing led to many key learnings that dictated the final design. Most importantly, we learned that setting up the robot was even slower than expected. Children are often involved and don’t understand the mechanics involved. They just shout at Jibo and wonder why he isn’t responding. This motivated us to find ways to both collapse the process wherever possible, but also to find things the user could do during setup to distract them. We knew this prototype wasn’t going to be as fun as the robot or even where we wanted the app visuals to go. But this wasn’t just perception, the differences caused confusion. Users weren’t sure if the different icons, emojis, and animations on the robot represented the same elements they do on mobile. Creating parity between the two applications was going to be key in building a cohesive and clear experience.