After identifying a use-case for an optional digital guide to help the user navigate process' upon their first visit, we embarked on a small round of Guerilla testing using the below digital guides as a starting point.

We decided to test on a spectrum from the more abstract to character based, while attempting not to lean too heavily into human forms, (this was for a variety of reasons ranging from inclusivity, to concerns this trend was quickly becoming an industry cliche.)

The tests all followed the same process based on the provided screens:

1) Introduce the guide and note initial thoughts

2) Show guide within a loading screen alongside text notification

3) Show guide with completion screen alongside text notification

4) After explaining the scale method, ask the respondent to place each guide somewhere on the sliding scale based on their feelings toward them.

5) Any other feelings they wished to discuss, or questions that arose during the process. 

The findings of these tests were used to produce a second set of guides and further rounds of testing, but were ultimately never implemented in any form.

This is Prism, intended to be the more abstract of the guides, Prism is a cross between a futuristic piece of tech and an esoteric reverential artefact.

This is Ellipses, the next progression from Prism, this guide was a nod to chatbots and the 'typing' symbol of iMessage but lived outside of a chat window, it had the ability to change shape, for example during a loading screen and also form expressions by animating the dots in order to represent facial features, introducing a little whimsey to the process.

These are Blue and Prismy. In an attempt to introduce a representation of the Human in the loop, Blue and Prismy represented the user and the product respectively, and could appear together or separately.

Prismy would deliver notifications and would be present whenever speaking as the product and Blue would be the present whenever interaction by the user was required to be shown. Much like Ellipses, Prismy could transform into any form the situation dictated, including representations of the product Blue could the interact with.

Below is the sliding scale used for all respondents