Daeun Yoo

UX researcher who researches 

building technology for humans

with behavioral science and AI

Full-time UX Researcher/Designer/CEO Advisor @Samsung R&D center

AI leaders at Harvard University

Harvard Behavioral Insights Student Group

1. Goal: Building Samsung’s new “family/child account” UX

2. Context: Family account is important to engage young children in Samsung’s eco-system, but Samsung couldn’t find additional value to attract users from Google and Apple.

3. Research: 1) Task Analysis, 2) Survey

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Samsung Account

2022.02-2022.05

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Closely worked with: three UX designers & researchers, one GUI designer

Collaborated with: two Product managers and one lawyer.

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- My role: UX research (Task analysis, quantitative survey, Competitive analysis (Apple, Google, Microsoft. etc.)

Product & service design strategy

Privacy

Security

Goal: To understand the overall system of other companies and find the similarities and differences 

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2. UX Research_ Competitive Analysis

Key findings

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1. When creating a child account, the verification step to check parents’ ability (payment, contact) is mandatory, and it’s important to clarify who will be responsible.
2. Safety: moving/deleting a child is complicated for protecting children.

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Goal: To understand the user experience of the "Family Account"

– identifying the current pros and cons that users encounter and gauging their expectations.

2. UX Research_ Survey

• Respondents: 300 people, Samsung employees, Age from 20s-50s, who have children from 6years-18years old
• Period: 2022.03-2022.04, Method: an online survey (google survey)
• Group 1: Have used family account: 150 // Group 2: Haven’t used: 100 // Group 3: Children (8years-18years): 50

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��Main questions

1. What family accounts do you have? (Google > Apple > Microsoft)
2. What are the main features that you use? (Parental control > Subscription > Payment sharing)
3. Why don’t you check family account frequently? (1^st: Don’t know what is benefits)
4. Why didn’t you make a family account? (1^st: Don’t know what is benefit, 2^nd: Fail during creating account)
5. (Children) Regarding parental control and payment sharing, what are your thoughts? (1^st: I don’t want to share my digital usage with parents)

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2. UX Research_ Survey

Key findings

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1. Over 60% of family account users are unaware of the benefits of the service.
2. More than 50% of people have experienced failures in the creation process.
3. There are conflicting needs between parents (control and safety) and children (privacy).

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→ 1. Show benefits clearly

→ 2. Prerequisites are already defined

→ 3. Allow users can make adjustments by themselves (Children & Parents)

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+ Insights from

Competitive Task Analysis

3. Key finding, Design direction

In each creation process, clearly explain the benefit of each feature/agreement.

Provide brief information about the creation process, such as prerequisites.

4. Impact: Reviews from PM & Lawyer, Next step

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SW

“Survey’s insight that shows preparation checklist is effective to prevent error”

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PM

“I agree that parental control and payment sharing is what users want than link health data.”

Lawyer

�“ ‘Why we need this feature’ is helpful to suggest legal requirements clearly ”

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Next step

�Samsung launched “Family Account” this year, and features will keep updating.

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If I have more time

1) Usability testing: Is there less failure when users prepare every prerequisite in advance?

2) Card sorting: Users (both parents & children) to find the agreed mental model on Parental control

1. Goal: Finding easier ways to journal and reflect on emotions

2. Context: Although journaling can effectively reduce depression and anxiety, people don’t have time to reflect on their emotions, and they consider journaling burdensome.

3. Research methodology: 1) Psychological review & study, 2) User research, 3) Expert review, Feedback review

AI-ert

2022.09- current

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The only UX researcher & designer in a team with one AI developer, one MIT business strategist, one psychologist.

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- My role: Qualitative research, Expert interview, UX Design

AI-ert

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Reflecting on your emotions through AI-generated art

Journal

Share

SNS

1. Context

1. Importance of reflecting on emotion

“Research has consistently linked the habitual tendency to accept one’s mental experiences with greater psychological health” (Ford et al., 2018). 

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�2. Using the artistic medium can cure depression 

(..) “14 articles were selected, among which the main techniques of art therapy used were: manual work (drawing, painting, and modeling), music, poetry(..) It can be understood that art therapy is a safe and reliable tool for treatment not only of depression but also of other mental disorders.” (Brandão FMV, 2019)

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Psychological study

10% of people in America suffer from depression, and 40% of workers suffer from burnout very often.

1. Context

AI-generated image’s Alexithymia score was -6.5points less than text-only group

(Total scores range: 20 - 100)

To mass-customization,

To understand whether generative AI art can be helpful,

• Before using Dall-E to build a journaling app, I wondered:

- How are people dealing with their emotions now? (journal, share)

- What are they lacking in current emotion-related mediums? (SNS / Paper diary)

2. UX Research

• Goal: To understand how people are reflecting emotions and what is needed when sharing emotions

2. UX Research_ interview

Key findings

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1. Consider SNS as official, and they’re worried about “empathy gap”

→  Worried about showing-off happy moments and sharing sadness, even though they want to.

2. Hope to journal, but they think they don’t have time.�

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Goal: Categorizing users’ needs and finding common needs & wants

2. UX Research – KJ mapping, empathy map

Key findings

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1. “Emotional gap” : Want to share emotions, but are worried about the “Emotional contagion”
2. Usually do more SNS when they’re sad/neutral

🡪 “Vicious cycle”

3. Key finding summary

& Design strategy

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UXR summary:

“ I want to focus on myself,

But it’s burdensome to do daily.

Also, sharing makes me think a lot”

Pattern

Insight

Strategy

Happy: want to share,

Sad: focus on emotion alone

Prefer to do passive activity before sleep

Easy and joyful way for journaling

Focuses on reflecting emotion first, but also gives the option to share with close friends.

Less-burdensome reflection UX is needed

Conflicting needs between share vs to be alone

4. Impact: Expert review & Users’ feedback

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Users

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“I can easily and artistically reflect my emotions! The gallery leads me that I can share my emotions with friends”

Art therapist

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“Visualizing emotion is powerful since users can identify their own emotions through storytelling”

Medical Doctor

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“Emotional gap is really a thing. Incorporating CBT can be also helpful to be used in clinical settings”

If I have more time

Log Analysis & Self-reported data

1) When and where do users use this app, and what is the app retention rate?

2) Finding whether users experience emotional improvement.

• Goal: Increase accessibility and retention rate of SmartThings
• Problem: Low retention rate. Only product owners continue to visit and they use the same features.
• Therefore, 1) I analyze an app to find a problem, 2) Find what the core feature that users expect from IoT app, 3) Elicit design direction

SmartThings

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2021.02-2022.02

Team: Three UX researchers & Designers.

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- My role: Core app Task Analysis, Service app Log Analysis

- Others: Service (in-app) task analysis, usability testing

SA Log

VOC

In-app services

1. Context

SmartThings:

A lot of Business divisions & cross-functional team

Key findings

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1. Even though there are conflicting condition, app doesn’t give signal 

2. In every page, app is showing status itself (on/off), no additional value/information

3. For novice users, current Automation creation page is difficult to build new condition.

2. UX Research_ Task Analysis (core app)

Goal: To understand previous app’s problem, across core features (Device control, Automation settings)

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Key findings

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• 1. 1^st, 3^rd: Users need to know the real-time status, which leads immediate action
• 2. 2^nd: Users are interested in intuitive benefits (saved money)

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Goal: To learn what users value(expect) the most in SmartThings. 

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2. Research: Log analysis (In-app service)

3. Key finding, Design direction

1. Lack of information on the value
2. Passive app ( No signal, No help)

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• Summarize related value

🡪 AI tag recommendation

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4. Impact: Reviews from users, PM, Judges, Next step

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Users

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“With summary, I feel like I can control the whole house”

�“Tag acts as a tutorial for me which shows how to create routines”

PM

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“ I agree current SmartThings is just acting as a dashboard. Let’s set this feature as one of the long-term goals and discuss with DA”

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Next step

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Some of these features will be added in 2023 SmartThings.

If I have more time

Interview novice/expert users (with pre-set automation & devices) and listen to how they think about updated-app.