Intel Widi (wireless display)

Problem and context:

As part of Intel’s “no wires” offering to drive enterprise PC sales, Intel Pro WiDi (wireless display) was a hardware and software application that allowed multiple meeting participants in a conference room to connect and share to a display wirelessly. This software would ship with every Windows PC that had an Intel processor capable of wireless display.

When I joined Intel to lead the design effort for this team, an early version of the solution existed, and the team had just brought the application into formal usability testing by means of a 3-month longitudinal study.

Unfortunately, it performed quite poorly. I was tasked with fixing the application.

Results revealed that it was difficult for participants to accomplish basic tasks, and the app was full of features that didn’t add much value.

There were too many steps involved in connecting and sharing

Selecting “meeting modes” was awkward, overly complex and went against the natural flow of meetings
In-application messaging was cumbersome and not useful when people were in the same room
Disconnection was not easy or obvious
Using the term “meeting” in the application caused confusion with software like Webex, Lync or GoToMeeting (this was pre-Zoom) where participants expected similar functionality

*The previous WiDi (Wireless Display) application*

Key challenges:

The application needed to be radically simplified, but business stakeholders were resistant to removing existing functionality.
The business required both the software and hardware to be backwards compatible with multiple versions of Windows. Firmware changes weren’t possible in the older hardware, which resulted in a less than ideal user experience.

How my solution proposed to address the problems:

Simplified meeting modes to support natural human interaction, including making the default mode open and unrestricted. Also introduced a simple “Block others from presenting” as a simple checkbox control.
Removed in-app messaging and communication
Introduced new “Ready to Present” screen that separated connection from sharing for privacy and security
Made disconnection more obvious
Sharing functionality (Duplicate or Extend Screen) becomes the primary interaction on the screen
Removed meeting terminology that caused confusion

We brought it in for another round of usability testing:

Using a clickable prototype, we had participants run through 3 meeting scenarios with the application screens. Findings were better than the previous test, but there were still issues.

*Round 2 of usability testing using a clickable prototype*

The findings were better.

Meeting & projection modes were much clearer to participants compared to the previous study
Concerns emerged around participants spending too much time “fiddling with the UI” instead of focusing on the meeting
Ensuring a smooth transition to the next presenter was much more important than the idea of “moderated mode.”
All participants still expected Pro WiDi to support remote attendees in spite of the UI and definition

But it was clear that we needed to simplify further. I had encouraged our stakeholders to attend the testing sessions so they could observe participants using the application. This helped underscore the need to simplify the application where there was some previous resistance to change.

So I broke the application down to its core functions, and started over.

*Breaking down the application to its basic functionality to define an MVP*

I focused on the following improvements:

Drastically reduced the UI so participants can present their content more quickly

Simplified meeting modes even further and pushed the functionality into a tab. This was a reasonable compromise that addressed the reluctance from stakeholders to remove functionality from the application.
Created a simplified experience for extended presentation mode that worked better with the latest versions of Windows

*A radically simpler UI that reduced the number of clicks and used progressive disclosure to reveal non-core application functionality*

*Round 3 of usability testing with the full hardware and software solution, with the redesigned application, was much more successful.*

Value delivered:

Drastically simplified the application down to an MVP that performed well in usability testing, and reduced unnecessary functionality
Invited stakeholders to attend user testing to observe participants interacting with the tool, which helped convince them to simplify the application
Began conversations with Microsoft to embed the functionality of allowing multiple presenters to connect into Windows 10.

My contributions:

Lead UX designer responsible for conceptual design
Oversight of interaction design
planning and executing user research