StrApp

User research

interviews

Communication apps have become an integral part of our lifestyles but we certainly have different relationships with them so I was curious to find out how different users would interact with them and why. I started the research phase with 5 in-depth interviews. My goal was to find out how the participants would behave with their communication apps as well as understanding the challenges they may have faced and how they would overcome them.

target audience

The interviews were carried out with participants aged late 20’s and early 30’s. As I wanted to cover a wide part of the spectrum, the participants’ backgrounds were varied and included profession fields such as Sales, Events, Marketing, Hospitality and IT. All participants had a fairly good understanding of their smartphones and their communication apps which are used personal or work purposes.

user survey

Some interesting patterns emerged from the interviews but to expand the scope of my research and collect more data, I created a survey to confirm and/or dismiss some of the findings and gathered 21 answers.

Affinity Diagram

With a good amount of data in hand, I grouped and organised the information in an affinity diagram. Here are some of the findings:

notifications

Most participants would use more than one communication app to achieve their goals. However having to switch between apps led to some challenges such as messages left unanswered. Indeed users would prioritise one or two communication apps over others. Feeling overwhelmed by the amount of notifications coming through was also a concern and users would have different methods to remove distractions.

privacy

Majority of users were concerned about their privacy settings and were keen change their settings after signing up for a new communication app. However the actual process of changing privacy settings within apps was perceived as challenging.

content sharing

While being a key feature, content sharing also showed some limitations when sharing across separate platforms. Most users would find it easy to share files or media however organising those across multiple platforms was perceived as difficult or time consuming.

"I would often switch off my phone completely if I felt overwhelmed" - John F.

"I usually need to move the same file across separate platforms to reach the desired recipients. It can become time consuming" - Hannah B.

Persona

Now that I gathered and organised information from my research, I wanted to create a persona that could reflect the targeted audience during the interview phase. It helped me focus on tackling the most important problems – to address the major needs of the most important user groups. It is both fictional and realistic.

Please meet Charlie! A Sales & Marketing Manager who enjoys a hectic lifestyle and uses plenty of communication apps.

User Journey Map

We are now trying to walk into Charlie’s shoes and make sense of his experience with communication apps throughout a typical day at work. This User Journey Map is allowing us to see how Charlie encounters several pain points and the process he goes through to overcome them.

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key findings

He struggles to stay on the top of all his communication channels. He uses multiple platforms but tend to prioritise WhatsApp and emails. As he is often time-constrained, he cannot always go through all his messages.
He lets notifications disrupt his meetings and evenings. He is reluctant to switch his phone off as he doesn't want to miss out on important communications.
He is cautious about sharing personal details with new clients when networking. However given that each communication app offers different levels of privacy, he often ends up disclosing personal details unwillingly.
Sharing content across various platforms means that Charlie often ends up with files and medias cluttered around. As a result, finding and organising them accordingly can become a lengthy process.

Problem statement

Now that we understand Charlie's relationship with his communication apps, I can synthesise the findings with problem statements that will allow me to build solutions to his problems.

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How might we...

Streamline communication channels?
Facilitate notification management so that they fade into Charlie’s lifestyle and fit his daily requirements?
Remove the assumption that changing privacy settings "can be challenging" and give Charlie more control over the information he wishes to share?
Allow Charlie to organise shared files and media quickly and speed up content sharing across separate platforms?

Ideation using SCAMPER

streamlining functions

All communication apps to be synced and monitored from a single platform
Merge search engines from all communication apps into one to allow user to look for other users from all platforms

privacy

Allow users to choose privacy settings during onboarding
Give more control to users over personal detail sharing choice
Simplify settings options and keep it relevant to users

notifications

Incorporate notification management into Homepage for quicker access
Add time settings to notifications
Sync notifications with calendars to allow automatic suggestions for when notifications can be switched off
Create ‘reply’ reminder on important messages

content sharing

Allow content to be shared from one platform directly into any communication apps
Converge files and media shared in any conversations into one screen
Allow user to create content folders directly on the app

Site Map

We are now putting ourselves into Alex’s shoes and walk with him through a booking process. We are noting the following. A few opportunities arise from this process to improve experience:

Low-fidelity Wireframes

With the key features and user flow defined , I started to capture my ideas by sketching low-fidelity screens using pen and paper. It enabled me to examine my ideas before moving onto digital wireframes.

Medium-Fidelity Prototype (1st iteration)

Once I had a visual direction for the app layout, I started to add more details and precisions to the sketches by turning them into mid-fidelity wireframes. In these wireframes, I included elements that directly address users' goals, needs, frustrations while incorporating common design patterns seen in other communication apps.

onboarding

The process allows the users to choose their privacy settings from the onboarding. I wanted to emphasise the importance of privacy and give the control back to the users. The privacy options would mainly focus on account visibility and personal details shared with others.
The final onboarding step is the account synchronisation where users would choose which communication apps to sync and use with this platform.

homepage layout

reply later

When unable to answer a message immediately, users can set a "reply later" reminder and set a time under the message options. Those reminders can be managed directly from the Homepage.

notification management

With this function, users can:
"Snooze with calendar" - notifications will be automatically turned off during meetings scheduled on their calendar
"Snooze" - notifications are off for a chosen length of time
Select "Accounts" to which the snooze function are applied to
Apply an "Exempt list" where specific contacts are able to bypass the "snooze" function

files

Within the "Files" screen, files and media from conversations are populated. In addition, users can add their own and organise them in folders and share to other users.

Usability Testing (Part 1)

test plan

With the first prototype ready, I went on to carry out moderated usability testing with 5 participants. The goal was to have them navigate through all functions presented in the previous section. While the app incorporated design patterns that could be commonly found in other communication apps, I was curious see whether the new functions would offer comprehensive solutions to the challenges found during the research phase.You can find the the usability testing tasks here.

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key findings

Onboarding - While the participants found the process clear and forms relevant, a “Skip” button was needed for users who wouldn't be willing to fill privacy settings while signing up.
Reminders - Participants were unsure if their reminders were set properly due to the lack of feedback after completing the task and suggested a pop-up message to confirm completion. The reminder list was difficult to find as it was located next to another icon on top right.
Notifications - While participants found it useful to have the function available on the Homepage, most of them were confused between the different snooze options and their functionalities. The wording needed to be rethought. The "Exempt list" was widely misunderstood and participants did not see the relevance of exempting specific contacts.
Files - Participants would look for specific files/folders using the search bar so the sort option to view the "shared files" only was widely missed. A more predominant search bar. The layout was described as a bit too cluttered.

Medium-Fidelity Prototype (2nd iteration)

Amongst changes made to the onboarding and "Files" screen based on the first round of testing, some key adjustments were made as follow:

reminders

The function has been moved to a separate screen and navigation added to the tab bar. Feedback animation has been added to indicate that new "reply later" reminders have been added. Users can now create their own reminders too. This way I also tried to reduce the amount of functions on the Homepage.

notifications

The "snooze" functions have been renamed as "Using calendar" and "Using timer" and a legend was added to add clarity. This terminology was more in line with the user flow once "snooze alerts" was turned on. The "Exempt list" option has been removed completely based on participants' feedback.

High-Fidelity Prototype

app name - strapp

The app's main function is to streamline the various attributes found in communications apps such as conversations, notifications and shared files. Therefore I decided to emphasise this aspect in the app name by blending the words "Streamline" and "App" together.

style guide

Before moving the prototype onto a High-fidelity version, I built a mood-board in order to help me define the visual aspects of the app. The idea was to find styles and colours that could be attributed to appeasement and sociability which the app aims to deliver through its functions.

First iteration

Usability Testing (Part 2) & Final iteration

I conducted a final round of usability testing with another 5 participants. The goals were widely similar to the first round as I wanted the participants to test the same functions i.e. onboarding, reminders, notifications and files. However I was keen to learn whether the changes made would eliminate the issues encountered by the previous participants.

onboarding

The "visibility settings" step appeared to confuse most users. They were not accustomed with the sentence "visibility settings" and unsure about the functions related to each setting option. There was a lack of explanation. Lastly, the page displayed too many options at once and some users felt overwhelmed. As a result, I changed the screen's name to "Privacy settings" which is commonly used in other apps, added a brief legend for each setting category and used a progressive disclosure method to condense all the options. I also replaced the "Let's do it" button as it was inconsistent with the rest of the flow.

notification

This has been by far the most challenging function to design. The way the "snooze alerts" functions were called kept on creating confusion amongst the participants. I also realised that I made the error to display the unavailable options when the option wasn't turned on which created more confusion.
Consequently, I changed the main function name to "Do not disturb" and the option names to "During meetings" and " During chosen time". I also applied a progressive disclosure method to condense all the options.

UI components

while the overall style of the app was positively received by the participants, a few areas of improvement were highlighted. The tab bar icons were not necessarily recognisable, especially the "reminder" icon. Some contrast issues between font and screen colour created some accessibility issues.
To resolve those problems, I added the icon names in the tab bar and re-adjusted the contrast on relevant screens by adding a darker font.