iOS Native App
OVERVIEW
Targeted UX and usability improvements of marriage health & wellness app
METHODS
Stakeholder Interview | Competitive/Comparative Analysis
Affinity Mapping | Wireframes | Prototype | A/B Usability Testing
TOOLS
G Suite | Miro
Figma | Sketch
ROLE
UX/UI Designer | UX Researcher
TIMEFRAME
Part-time, 8 weeks
INTRODUCTION
The Problem
This project’s focus was to evaluate and improve Lasting’s session-starting experience, in order to enhance user engagement with the app’s themed category content.
The Opportunity
Lasting’s unique, research-driven marriage counseling content guides couples through relationship inventories, theme-based exercises, and paired partner comparisons.
APPROACH
Discover
Competitive Analysis
Comparative Analysis
A/B Usability Testing
Define
Affinity Mapping
Qualitative Data Synthesis
A/B Usability Reports
Design
Mid-Fi Wireframing
Mid-Fi Prototyping
A/B Usability Testing
Deliver
High-Fi Wireframing
High-Fi Prototyping
Usability Testing
STARTING
Stakeholder Interview
Stakeholders wanted to increase user engagement with the app’s themed category content, as current data showed a plateau trend in that area. Two screen design solutions were already underway, and stakeholders provided them to me as part of the project materials.
Heuristic Evaluation
After conducting a heuristic evaluation of the app’s existing design, two main issues stood out to me: 1) a lack of visual identifiers for quick category delineation, and 2) text-heavy description screens shown immediately after clicking into each category.
Competitive/Comparative Analysis
Looking at the competition, I evaluated the UX & UI designs of leading health & wellness apps (Headspace & Talkspace), as well as another non-competitor app designed to lead users through curated content (Serial Reader).
RESEARCH
Talking to Users
Constructing two prototypes from the screens provided, and two prototypes based on my heuristic evaluation, I conducted A/B usability tests of all four prototypes across two different user groups.
Synthesizing Research
User feedback on the stakeholder-provided designs strongly favored one prototype over the other, but some users still felt both prototypes needed: 1) more category details available up front, and 2) less information-dense descriptive screens after clicking into categories.
User feedback on the heuristic-informed designs was more split, with participants agreeing on liking and disliking the same portions of each prototype, namely the category screen design from one, and the category description carousel design from the other.
Articulating Insights
To best illustrate my findings, I crafted a series of A/B testing reports, focusing on three key areas: 1) the session category screen, 2) category & session details, and 3) starting a session.
INSIGHTS
Opportunities
Moving forward, two areas of opportunity stood out to me:
1) Though one of the stakeholder designs outperformed the other, users still expressed wanting more category details up front, and easier-to-digest descriptive content once inside categories.
2) Though the heuristic-informed designs used iconography to delineate between categories and an “onboarding-style” carousel to making category descriptions more digestible, users echoed the desire for more category and session details up front, as well a hybrid version of the carousel design.
DESIGN
The Focus
Because having more detailed information up front, as well as synthesized carousel designs, were consistent themes users expressed across both A/B testing groups, I prioritized solving those pain points.
The Strategy
Reevaluating the user flow, I nested category and session details within drop-down menus on their respective screens. I then created a hybrid carousel design, to best reflect user feedback from the A/B tests.
USABILITY
The Test
Testing the hi-fi prototype with users, I found that:
4/4 users responded positively to the new carousel design, noting its clean layout and detailed, yet digestible category information
2/4 users found the details drop-down menu design difficult to use, noting that the menu placement and title felt less than intuitive
The Verdict
Overall, users rated the ease of exploring content as 4 out of 5, and ease of starting a session as 5 out of 5.
Though the satisfaction score was lower than I’d hoped, all users commented positively on the prototype’s design, layout, overall ease of use, and ease of starting a session.
PROTOTYPE
CONCLUSION
So What?
While testing of the final hi-fi prototype revealed further improvements could be made, the design changes also successfully enhanced the overall user experience of starting a session in the Lasting app.
By listening carefully to both my stakeholder’s goals and A/B testing participants’ feedback, the prototype design presented a more communicative interface (boosted via illuminative iconography), providing onboarding-style category overviews, and up-front access to category and session details.
What’s Next?
Though the results of the hi-fi usability tests were positive overall, I still recognized two key areas of opportunity to address in future design iterations:
Rethinking how the “Details” content is presented, accessed by, and communicated to users (perhaps a modal window, on-tap)
Conducting additional usability tests with the app’s existing onboarding screens included (to provide users more context of the app’s purpose)
