The Team

This project was completed by Thola Experience Research, a stellar team of Bentley Human Factors graduate students:

• Bryce Firman
• Tracy Flynn
• Lisa Lokshin
• Adam Swain

We conducted the project under the leadership and guidance of David Philbin (Verizon Wireless) and Bob Virzi (Bentley University).

Background

Feature-phone users make up a significant minority of the Verizon Wireless customer base, and it is estimated that most of these users prefer the simplicity of feature phones over feature-rich but complex smartphones.  In the interest of providing its users with a smartphone that mimics the simplicity of a feature phone, Verizon wanted to understand feature-phone users’ reactions to the Ubuntu Touch, a new operating system that may be introduced into the global smartphone market over the next few years.

Process

Verizon Wireless provided the team with two Ubuntu-Touch enabled Nexus 5 phones.

1. Expert Reviews
   

   Example of usability issue found in group expert review.

   

   Example of usability issue found in group expert review.

First, each team member conducted its own expert review of the operating system, focusing on the core functionality that would be most important to a feature-phone user transitioning to her/his first smartphone: calling, texting, taking pictures, and using the address book.  Then the team came together to compile results into one group expert review.

Despite the OS’s sleek, attractive design, we uncovered significant usability problems with the navigational elements of the system.  We used our findings to inform our test plan for phase two of the project, a usability test.

2. Usability Test

Verizon Wireless recruited twelve feature phone customers, each to participate in a 60-minute, in-person, one-on-one usability study at Bentley’s UXC lab.  As in the expert reviews, we sought to test the OS’s core functionality: calling, texting, taking pictures, and using the address book.

Though the study was qualitative in nature, the team solicited a good deal of numerical responses during the sessions, including a pre-test questionnaire regarding current phone usage, Likert questions after each task, and a post-test SUS questionnaire.  I love numbers, so I volunteered to do this part of the analysis.

Results

The complete report is available here.

Ultimately, we recommended that Verizon Wireless not adopt the Ubuntu Touch as an operating system for its customers transitioning from feature phones to smartphones.