Master Thesis

Overview

During the last semester of my Master's, I was able to complete my thesis in cooperation with The Mobile Life. The Mobile Life is an app development company in Stockholm that has created native iOS and Android applications for several big companies in Sweden.

One of The Mobile Life's clients, a hotel chain in Stockholm, wanted to create a new application for their guests. One of the main goals of the application was to improve the check-in process for their guests. To reach this goal the hotel chain wanted to make it possible for their customers to open the room with their phone. My research was therefore focused on designing a digital key that is both easy to use and perceived as safe as well as designing a new online check-in to receive this key.

Thesis

My role

I started by performing a literature research. After this a Research through Design approach was followed consisting of semi-structured interviews, an analysis of textual user reviews, and Lo-Fi and Hi-Fi prototyping to understand the needs and problems users face while receiving and using a digital key.

Method

Semi-structured interviews & thematic analysis

I started the research by conducting semi-structured interviews to find out what the current feeling of safety is of hotel guests when using a digital key and what influences this feeling. The interviews were semi-structured because these tend to be more in-depth and flexible, which makes them more appropriate to collect data about the experiences, perspectives, and feelings of individuals.

A total of 20 participants were interviewed. All the interviews were recorded and transcribed. Thematic analysis was used to construct knowledge by analyzing the interview data.

Analysis of textual user reviews

As it was difficult to get in touch with participants that had already used a digital key before, an analysis of textual user reviews from four different applications that already use a digital key was added. This analysis is a good resource when interviewing users can be more difficult. I collected the reviews from both the Apple app store and the Google Play store by using a Node.js script that is publicly available on github.

Design process

Based on the insights from the literature, interviews, and review analysis I started with the design of the application. First, I wrote down different features and ideas for the check-in process and digital key. I also created a mood board that included screens of existing applications. I translated these ideas into various sketches on paper, which I then discussed with a UX Designer at The Mobile Life. I created a total of 14 different screens, but for every screen and the different features I sketched multiple solutions. Based on the Lo-Fi prototype and previous insights I created the Hi-Fi prototype in Figma. After the first iteration, I discussed the design with a UX Designer and a product manager at The Mobile Life once more. After this session, the final prototype was created, which consisted of 16 different screens.