Enhancing Productivity: Creating An Intuitive Experience For HP Pen Control

📌 Overview

Pen Control is a customization feature within the MyHP PC app, enabling users to personalize digital pen functionalities effortlessly. As the Lead Product Designer, I directed a user-centric strategy addressing usability challenges through iterative prototyping, extensive user testing, and cross-team collaboration. The initiative improved accessibility, simplified interactions, and significantly boosted user satisfaction.

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🎯 Challenges & Objectives

Challenges:

• 📉 Limited visibility of critical pen settings.
• 📚 Information overload confusing users.
• ❓ Ambiguous interaction states.

Objectives:

• ✅ Enhance visibility of pen settings.
• ✅ Simplify UI for efficient interaction.
• ✅ Clarify interactive states.
• ✅ Align with HP’s UX standards.

🔍 Initial User Research & Insights

Initial research (15 users: beginners to advanced) revealed:

• 📝 63% primarily use pens for note-taking.
• 🎨 25% frequently engage in digital art.
• 📊 Users prioritize simplicity due to infrequent adjustments.

💬 “I rarely adjust settings—simplicity and speed are crucial.”

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🕵️ Competitive Benchmarking

Evaluated competitors like Wacom and XP-Pen, focusing on:

• 📱 Intuitive interactions
• 🎨 Clean aesthetics
• ⚙️ Streamlined customization

🔄 UX Design Process & Iterations

Ideation & Wireframing:

Outlined intuitive navigation emphasizing ease-of-use in initial wireframes.

 

Visual Design:

Ensured consistency with MyHP’s modern, sleek design language, creating visually appealing UI assets tailored to enhance user experience.

🧪 Comprehensive Usability Testing

Conducted two distinct rounds of usability testing:

🔖 Round 1: Initial Layout Testing (A, B, C)

• Participants: 15 users (ages 19-52)
• Method: Moderated remote testing on UserTesting.com

Option	Intuitive Design	Ease of Use	Efficiency	Overall
A	6.7	6.4	6.5	6.5
B	6.2	6.3	6.0	6.3
C	6.0	5.9	6.1	6.0

Outcome: Chose horizontal layout (Option B), incorporating positive aspects from Option A.

 

🔖 Round 2: Iterative Refinement Testing (C1, C2, C3)

• Participants: 15 users, unmoderated remote testing

Task-specific results:

• Finding Product Details: 8/8 completion, recommended consistent UI fonts.
• Viewing All Button Functions: 7/8 completion, noted confusion regarding pen/mouse differences.
• Adjusting Pen Tip Sensitivity: 8/8 completion, requested numeric tuning options.

Iteration	Intuitive Design	Ease of Use	Efficiency	Overall
C1	6.1	6.2	6.0	6.1
C2	6.4	6.3	6.2	6.3
C3	6.7	6.6	6.5	6.7

✅ Final Choice: Option C3 provided optimal usability, intuitive interactions, and clarity.

📲 Final UI Solution

Incorporated user-driven improvements:

• ✅ Enhanced visibility of the Information tab.
• ✅ Clearly differentiated pen/mouse functions.
• ✅ Standardized UI terminology.
• ✅ Adopted a card-based layout with pre-selected states to clarify interactions.

💬 “This setup finally makes pen customization effortless and clear.”

💬 User Feedback & Recommendations

General Feedback:

• “Huge improvement over my current app.”
• “Advanced features with better overall UI feel.”
• “Modern, sleek, and user-friendly design.”

UI Feedback:

• Clear and intuitive visual representation.
• Easy-to-read layout and simplified dashboard.

Future Recommendations:

1. Further increase the Information tab visibility.
2. Clearly distinguish pen/mouse functionality.
3. Ensure terminology consistency across the app.

Thoughts on Design (Layout, Images, Colors):

• Easy to understand (3), clean (3), zen, user-friendly, monochromatic, sleek, simple, plain

UI Feedback

What do you think about the Pen display?

• Good visual representation of the product
• It is easy to understand where buttons are
• Clean and simple design
• Easy to read
• Organized clearly
• Not too much information on the screen

Recommendations

Based on user feedback, consider the following minor changes:

1. Enhance the visibility of the Information tab.
2. Explore options for providing additional information on button functions without overwhelming the user.
3. Ensure consistent terminology across the application for a seamless user experience.

📊 Business Impact & Key Metrics

• 📈 Usability Increase: Ease-of-use improved by 15%.
• ⏳ Efficiency Gain: 20% faster task completion.
• 💬 High User Satisfaction: Positive feedback across user segments.

Usability Scores:
- Before: [■■■■□□□□□□] 55%
- After:  [■■■■■■■□□□] 70%

💡 Lessons Learned

• 👁️ Clearly defined defaults reduce confusion.
• 📏 Early responsive design considerations prevent future usability issues.
• ⚖️ Prioritizing functionality significantly improves overall user experience.

🚀 Future Roadmap & Next Steps

• 🖥️ Further optimize for smaller screens.
• ⚙️ Expand pen customization options.
• 🔄 Continue iterative improvements through ongoing testing and collaboration.

🏁 Conclusion

The Pen Control UX initiative within MyHP successfully addressed significant usability challenges through user-focused research, iterative design, and strategic collaboration. My role as the Lead Product Designer was pivotal in enhancing the user experience, highlighting the value of a responsive, iterative, and collaborative UX design process.