For our interface, our target intended users are small business owners, that may or may not be able to afford other advertising mediums due to financial constraints.

Small businesses make up a massive 97.38% of all Australian businesses. (ABS, 2014) However, several changes (and potential risks) were identified in the 2014 report published by the Office of the NSW Small Business Commissioner - including:

Understanding the Problem Space

1. Technology

Advances to technology are difficult to predict - and thus it is often hard for small businesses to adapt - including increasing expenses in order to adapt to new technology.

We want to address this problem by integrating current, already learnt technology (such as an iPad) to control emerging technology (i.e autonomous vehicles) in order to simplify the adaptation process.

2. Engaging with customers

Businesses’ engagements with customers and other stakeholders has drastically changed - and expected to keep changing due to the rise of social media. The vast improvements in communication as well as changes in forms of advertising will make it easier for international competitors to disrupt the Australian market. We want to empower Australian businesses to increase their incomes through uses of affordable advertising strategies.

Existing technologies

• Lyft Halo is an advertising platform where personalised ads are shown on the top of taxis.
• DroneCast is an a drone that uses drones to carry banners - in the past has been used with clients such as Ford Motors.

Research questions

In order to design the best solution, we first needed to effectively understand the problem space. This was done through asking, and understanding:

1. What is the main process to advertise a business, service or product?

2. What are the challenges faced by companies and small businesses, as well as advertising agencies when advertising a product or a service? What opportunities can be found from this?

3. What are the current advertising mediums business use and what are their limitations?

4. What are the current preferences that people have when viewing or showing advertising material?

5. What applications or other forms of technology are currently used during the advertising process?

6. What needs, interests and motivations do participants have for advertising campaigns?

7. How do usage needs differ based on business type and type of product/service being advertised?

8. What is the context of interactions with advertisements? (e.g location, time etc.)

9. What ideas and emotions are usually associated with advertising?

Research methodologies

Selected Insights

There were a number of different insights we derived from our research. Some of the things we heard were:

"Majority of businesses are not tech-based, for your information."

"The businessman's best approach is through exhibitions - to find or attract wholesale consumers. Advertising is only effective for retail consumers"

"The business relies heavily on new products to innovate and stay relevant in the market, and so when a new product is launched it is heavily advertised."

"Because when you talk about advertising, it is the amount of reach that is most important, as advertising's main purpose is awareness of a brand"

From consumers, amongst many insights, we learnt that:

• Social Media adverts were the most effective, followed by TV ads and Word of Mouth

• Advertisements have a large impact on how people shop, with many people looking to "influencers"

• Some of the strongest emotions associated with advertisements were to do with annoyance, specifically when users felt as if they had no agency around whether they could navigate away from the advert

Defining insights

Personas

We then created personas to better visualise the type of customer we were designing for and ensure a user-centered design process.

Affinity diagram

Our affinity diagram indicated to us that advertising solutions needed to be reliable, affordable, and personalisable to small business owners. Additionally, consumers wanted agency around the consumption of the ads, and liked ads that were relatable and relevant.

Storyboarding

Storyboarding allowed us to better understand the customer journey faced by individuals.

Ideation

We then conducted brainstorming exercises, including leapfrogging, to brainstorm different ideas. These ideas were then filtered based on feasibility of implementation, its ability to meet or address user needs, and lastly, whether the design was ethical.

Other sketches of exemplar concepts include:

Final concept

Our final concept was an iPad application which could be used to personalise advertisement settings. This would be used by an autonomous drone that would fly over and above a certain region and, using bluetooth, would transmit personalised adverts. Although for this project we did not build the drone, we designed the companion application for implementation.

Low fidelity prototyping

Initially, we wireframed our designs in order to test the "UX Flow" with potential users, and then iterate based on feedback.

High fidelity prototyping

All screens can be found here. The prototype was originally created on Pixate, which has since been a tool that has been discontinued by Google.

The final prototype video can be viewed here.

Impact

Although this project was only done as a proof of concept for the usage of autonomous drones, it served as a good indicator of some of the feasible uses of emerging technology. This project was completed with Brenda Flores.