Harman
UI/UX Design, Product Management
Duration:
3 Months (Sept 2023 – Dec 2023)
Tools:
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Miro, Mural, Google Suite
Teams:
Generative AI
Harman's Chatbot
Generative AI
Fall 2023 Product Design Manager
As a Product Designer and Manager of 7, I worked on ideating the implementation of generative AI to their current ecosystem of websites to improve user engagement, retention, and visitor to purchaser conversion rate by leveraging new and current market trends.
I had an amazing experience taking on the challenge of creating a business plan for a new AI infrastructure for Harman in 12 weeks. The project’s goal was to find a way to effectively implement Generative AI in a centralized, non-invasive and user-friendly way by leveraging aspects that could be improved upon in the current websites. I used my skills in leadership and User Experience to lead market research initiatives, create functional wireframes, and generate innovative interactive animations.
Context
🔮 Overview
Harman’s Innovation Challenge is a program that involved 2 teams of UCLA students who were tasked with innovating a providing a solution to a certain part of their website ecosystem. My team was Generative AI. In 10 weeks, we needed to write an entire business plan and design a new out-of-the-box interactive solution that gave the company a new perspective on how to use AI. We conducted market research on various AI tools, and eventually settled on improving the company’s chatbot. We focused on JBL.com, and had to design keeping in mind the scalability to other websites.
🧑🔧 Stakeholders
Throughout this challenge, I constantly reported to the program manager Raffi Simonian, and our Harman Supervisor, Bryce Merrill to make sure our team was on track, that we received critical feedback, as well as to gauge the feasibility and scope of the project every step of the way. During our weekly meetings, we also had the chance to proactively seek out creative guidance and question our approach with our co-supervisor and advisor, Elaine Chow. At the end of the challenge, we had to present our solutions in front of a panel of judges which included Harman’s product and marketing executives as well as other Senior staff.
Problem
The Challenge: Explore the possibilities of Generative AI technologies in the User Experience field and leverage that technology to improve Harman’s CX
To explore this prompt, we had to address numerous concerns and questions before getting started. First, we needed to conduct research on current AI usage by other companies and how the industry is growing with GenAI. We also needed to conduct research on how we can leverage AI to improve customer experience by looking at other business models. Through this, we can then start to formulate a strategy recommendation and adoption plan for Harman, leading to building an MVP on the JBL website that incorporates our designed recommendation.
Design Process
📖 Research
Our first step was to understand the constraints posed by AI, how other companies have leveraged AI, as well as how we could implement advancements to Harman’s own CX. My researched focused on GPT models by OpenAI and Google’s Bard; analyzing how these technologies are utilized to create user-friendly experiences.
For the first 3 weeks, we conducted Market Research to explore the possibilities, limitations, implementations, and concerns. We also conducted Unstructured User Interviews with several users and Harman employees to figure out what exactly they noticed about their site that needed improvement. They revealed that the existing Virtual assistant was very flowchart based and could not give answers that were very helpful most of the time. It would also be useful if we introduce new functionality to help with user-decision through AI.
“The current chatbot doesn’t use AI and it’s flowchart-based so its very limited in how closely it can answer questions, differentiate, etc. It can’t give an intelligent answer to compare product designs.”
– Internal Employee
“It’s be nice if we had some sort of user-decision assistance like a quiz, product comparator visualization or personalized recommendations using AI”
– JBL.com User
Design
Chatbot Pop-up
I explored the layout and visual hierarchy possibilities for an interactive AI chatbot and received a lot of useful and critical feedback on what works best in the context of innovation. I created low-fidelity prototypes of 2 approaches that were the most likely candidates and ultimately, I decided to go with the north star design which was more out of the box, yet interactive and appealing. The next few weeks, revolved around perfecting that approach.
Design
Character
🔊 Flipster
A problem that arose out of this approach was the lack of a defining character which users can associate with not only the brand but also the function. Thus, I ideated the kind of character that would work best and delegated tasks to the team accordingly. My solution for the character was an avatar associated with JBL’s signature product, who we call Flipster.
Design
Wireframing
Design
Experience
To complete the main product of our business plan, we created a functional prototype which the judges could interact with during our presentation. This would give them a clear idea of the full customer experience the new chatbot would provide. Furthermore, we decided to make it very interactive and out-of-the-box to showcase the AI aspect of Flipster. I wanted to show people that this was not just another virtual assistant from a shopping website.
Outcome
🔄 Backend User Experience
Another aspect to user experience aside from visual artifacts, is the experience itself. Thus, I collaborated with the software engineering side of the team to work on offering the best possible dialogue and interaction. We leveraged the OpenAI GPT API, and engineered prompts to ensure we got the results we wanted out of the chatbot.
📽️ Presentation
Together, we compiled a business plan and pitch in the form of a presentation which we delivered at the Harman Experience Center.
Takeaways
🌎 Design, Develop, Delegate
This project allowed me to improve my skills in critical thinking, human-centered design, and management as I devised solutions to the challenge laid out by Harman while managing a 7-person team. I took this opportunity as an entry-point into designing with and using AI, experimenting with various implementations and ideas that were not necessarily traditional. Through collaborating with seniors, engineers, illustrators, and other designers, I was able to learn how how products and features come to life in the biggest world’s most influential environments.
In the end, we were able to deliver a business plan that serves as a great improvement to the current feature existing within the website. With visual components, interactions and implementations discussed, we hope that this idea would be brought to life one day.
✌️ Harmany
Looking back at my time at Harman, leading a team of seven designers and engineers to create a business plan for a new AI chatbot was a great experience. It taught me a lot about how design and technology work together in harmony, and how important teamwork, planning, and using data can be. Besides learning about the product, I also got better at leading a team, communicating effectively, and taking responsibility. I’m grateful for my supervisors Bryce, Raffi, and Elaine for their helpful feedback and support. Their desire to help us grow and improve as working professionals really shone through and I will always remember the lessons I learned here for my future endeavors!