Emotion response analyzing software
Jury Labs is a product that helps attorneys improves the chance of successful outcomes by testing jury's emotional responses to their arguments using insights gained by consultant and human behavior experts using Emotion Recognition Technology.
The goal of this project was to create a product that trial consultant and human behavior expert, Susan Constantine, could use to measure and gather data on a jury's emotional response.
The MVP was successfully launched within the 6 month timeframe and was evaluated at 9 million dollars. Shortly after launch, it was purchased and adopted by two enterprise level clients, General Mills and The Hershey’s Company. It also successfully raised A round venture capital funding to continue to grow and improve the product.
My responsibilities with Jury Labs were product design and project management. I was part of a team made up of four people, including a software developer, an account executive, a design intern, and myself, as the lead designer.
I also worked closely with the stakeholders, Susan Constantine, and her team, to ensure business goals were prioritized. The software developer and I collaborated to guarantee the product was feasible once technical limitations were taken into consideration and tested.
Attorneys do not know how a jury will react to their legal arguments before a trial takes place.
With a very small team, and a fixed amount of time to complete the project, our approach was to be as agile as possible. I researched the problem we were trying to solve, and based on the understanding I achieved, defined the scope of the project. This led to a cycle of prototyping, testing, and iterating, and eventually to a final product.
In order to create an informed user experience, I conducted user research through surveys and qualitative interviews. I also conducted interviews with stakeholders to achieve an understanding of the business goals.
I collected data on potential users by conducting a survey. 447 attorneys were questioned about their familiarity with mock trial consulting and focus group services. They were asked to rate the value of these services. The purpose of the survey was to determine how our concept would be received by legal professionals.
When asked about the advantage of receiving emotive response data on mock jurors’ reactions to presentations
When asked about being able to have a more complete understanding of mock jurors’ emotional reactions to witnesses, evidence, and pictures/videos during presentations, attorney responses ranged from
I conducted qualitative interviews with 3 attorneys to discern the challenges they face when they are preparing and practicing their legal arguments, and how data pertaining to emotional reactions could be helpful to them.
I also interviewed the primary stakeholders, Susan Constantine and her partner, to clearly define the business goals.
“Having hard data to back up my observations on human behavior is critical. Attorney’s are very
analytical and this new
technology can help bring authority to my examinations. I need something that will show me this data so I can use it
to
back up and improve my analyses. I’m excited about this new technology opening up new business opportunities for
me.”
— Susan Constaine, MPsy
Combining the information I gathered from the discovery session with results from testing Emotion Recognition Technology, the software developer and I worked together to establish a set of core features for the product that would address the user’s pain points, and meet the stakeholder’s business goals.
We created a list of features via a brainstorming and white-boarding session.
Once the team and stakeholder approved the features list, I began to create UX User Flows, Sketches and Wireframes.
UX User Flows specify a series of steps a user takes to achieve a meaningful goal. This process allowed me to clearly define the more abstract and technical parts of the app in a straightforward way, and ultimately translate a list of features into an end product.
This diagram describes the steps to record a video of a juror’s face to be analyzed by Emotion Recognition Technology.
Record a Session UX Flow Diagram
This diagram describes the steps to analyze the video with Emotion Recognition Technology so the data can be viewed.
Process a Session UX Flow Diagram
This diagram describes the steps to analyze the Emotion Recognition Technology data so conclusions can be reached with the data.
Review/Analyze a Session a Session UX Flow Diagram
I then sketched and wireframed the user interface.
In order to translate the UX User Flow into the visual style of the UI, I created sketches. I worked closely with the software developer to conceive a UI design that was technically feasible. Sketching helped visualize the screen-to-screen interactions quickly and collaboratively.
The first iteration of the digitized wireframes were built after sketching. The wireframes conveyed the overall direction and description of the UI, gave an outline for the structure and layout of the screen, and presented the information that would be displayed. Feedback from the team, stakeholders, and users gave the confirmation to move forward.
Photo: Paper Sketches and Wireframes
I then prototyped, tested and iterated the product design. Knowledge gained from this process allowed me to find a UI design that would meet user needs as quickly as possible.
I created a low-fidelity paper prototype based on the initial wireframes. This prototype provided a fast and cost-effective way to test my initial conceptualization of the user interface.
Low-Fidelity Prototype UI
Analyze screen UI
Analyze screen UI, hovering over line chart
Analyze screen UI, video tab open
Analyze screen UI, hovering over juror
Analyze screen UI, selecting emotion
Photo: User Testing Paper prototype
Low-Fidelity Prototype User Testing
Users appreciated the visualization of data and liked that it was the center and primary focus of the screen. They did not like that they had to scroll in order to see the full list of jurors, and that they had to select a point of interest before they had the option to change which emotion or facial expression data that was displayed. They also suggested it would be easier to read the data on the graph if it were presented on a dark background, but they liked that color coding was used to differentiate between the jurors. Based on this assessment, I made major changes to the layout and developed a color palette that would make the line graph easier to read.
Layout changes based on user feedback
Color pallet based on user feedaback
The feedback from the low-fidelity prototype allowed me to create a higher-fidelity prototype that was closer to the final design. To validate this UI design, I created a click-through prototype to implement in user testing.
Photo: Clickthrough prototype prototype to record a session
Photo: Clickthrough prototype prototype to view a session
Photo: Click-through prototype user testing
High-Fidelity Prototype User Testing
I performed user testing on the high-fidelity click-through prototype. Overall, the feedback was positive and only minor changes were needed. One user pointed out that if there was a very long session with many ‘points of interest’, it could be difficult to keep track of them all. Taking this into consideration, we included a place to add notes to a ‘point of interest’, in addition to having general summary notes.
Once the UI design was validated and approved, it was given to the software developer for programming. This resulted in a functional prototype.
Photo: Functional prototype user testing
Functional Prototype User Testing
Testing the functional prototype with all of the working hardware was an important step in finalizing the product. With co-workers standing in as the jurors, I performed a final user test.
It became apparent that users may need to process videos that are not from a recording session in which the Jury Lab product was used. This resulted in us adding functionality for this scenario, as well as an “upload session” button to the home screen.
This test also defined the parameters needed for optimal results in a recording session, and validated the final product design. I created an instruction manual to clearly communicate the best way to use the technology.
Technical Setup Diagram
Technical Setup Detail Diagram
UI Documentation
UI Documentation
UI Documentation
UI Documentation
UI Documentation
Jury Lab Emotion Response technology gives attorneys an understanding of the impact of their arguments on jurors by measuring their emotional responses. This helps attorneys tailor their arguments to achieve the desired result.
Jury Lab was successfully launched and was granted a patent for the software shortly after. As the product designer, I was included in the patent. Jury Lab is currently being used by Susan Constantine to help legal professionals.
View the Jury Lab website View the Jury Lab patent
“Training thousands of attorneys and government agencies how to read facial expressions of emotions and to detect
deception has always been a rewarding career — but it’s a combination of art and science, not acquired overnight. With
Jury Lab, my clients have a technology that allows us to read the relevant data points of the face linked to human
emotion, and translate the interpretations into information that can be used to improve case strategies.”
— Susan Constaine, MPsy
