User Experience Professional
Project Scope
Role: UX Researcher
Client: Dashible
Project type: iOS app redesign
Project length: 3 weeks
My contribution: In-depth Interviews, Persona, and Usability and Prototype Testing; Sketches, minor work on high-fidelity prototype
Tools: Pen & Paper, Miro, Figma, Google Workspace, Trello
Dashible Deals App Redesign
Dashible x General Assembly
Dashible is a native iOS/Android lifestyle app that puts deals, discounts, and promotions from New York City merchants on your smartphone - like coupons in your pocket. However, a Dashible-held event showed that users bounce during onboarding. Furthermore, Dashible struggled to get current users to sign up for its loyalty program despite users reporting interest.
My design team needed evidence-based direction to focus Dashible's iOS redesign of its onboarding and loyalty feature.
Goals: (1) Conduct user research to address onboarding usability issues and (2) evaluate page hierarchy for accessing the loyalty program.
Results: Clear copy and tooltips ensured users could navigate onboarding as desired. Adding loyalty program buttons near the top of business and deal pages increased program discoverability.
Impact: Evangelized UX research and design value to the client. Additionally, a research-supported redesign of the navigation bar and business page layout decreased click errors by 96.4%. (Jump to section.)
GOALS
What we aim to contribute:
Design Research Goals
• Understand our target users' workflow when introduced to Dashible and its onboarding process.
• Understand users' pain points onboarding.
• Evaluate the appropriate page hierarchy and discoverability necessary to access the loyalty feature.
RESEARCH
Heuristic Evaluation
At the request of Dashible's CEO to assess usability “without users,” my team adjudicated both the onboarding and loyalty sign-up flows against Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics. Dashible's greatest issues were Visibility of System Status, Error Prevention, and Recognition Rather than Recall.
In total, my team offered 37 recommendations to improve the app's usability across the 10 usability heuristics.
Heuristic Evaluation Results, abridged
Usability Test
I devised a usability test to observe five (5) participants going through Dashible's onboarding and loyalty program sign-up flows. The test asked participants to complete the following tasks:
1. Navigate to the home screen and
2. Enroll in OJBK Tea Shop’s loyalty program
Onboarding: Two identical arrows on the first onboarding screen confused participants. All expected that one arrow would allow them to skip the tutorial while the other would send them through it. However, all participants chose the arrow that led down the path opposite their intentions.
Loyalty sign-ups: All participants needed moderator assistance to locate and sign up for loyalty cards. Many claimed they would have abandoned the task after three (3) attempts if they had not asked for help.
Usability Test Results
Crucial Insight
Users expected features like a loyalty program to be an integral part of their experience on Dashible. Specifically, users deemed accessing loyalty more important than being able to review previous deals they have declined in the swipe-preference feature when navigating the app. All participants wanted to know whether merchant pages included loyalty programs without scrolling.
DESIGN
Creating a design hypothesis
Synthesizing all of the information from our research, my team conducted a design studio to imagine how the app could function. After selecting items from the best ideas, we came up with the following design hypothesis to guide our designers' wireframing and prototyping:
We believe that by (1) integrating design patterns like tooltips, (2) elevating loyalty programs in page hierarchy, (3) gamifying loyalty, and (4) overhauling the navigation bar, we will make Dashible a more intuitive and enjoyable app.
We will know this to be true when we see more users signing up for loyalty programs, redeeming deals, and collecting stars more frequently than before.
TESTING
Focus on streamlining the process
Six (6) participants agreed to test my team's prototype in medium or high fidelity. The test determined that users should be able to onboard and enroll in a loyalty card -- using multiple routes -- with 100% accuracy.
The test asked users to complete the following tasks:
1. Open the prototype and navigate to the home screen,
2. Enroll in OJBK Tea Shop's loyalty program by obtaining a loyalty card and redeeming a deal,
3. Favorite your OJBK Tea Shop loyalty card, and
4. Enroll in Mizu Sushi's loyalty program without using a QR code.
My team was pleased that participants could complete the tasks with fewer errors than those on the usability test.
Prototype Testing Results
Yet, "greater ease" does not mean perfect, and our participants were vocal about their expectations that the medium-fidelity prototype should be more intuitive.
Of the introductory tooltips:
"I liked the layout and the language."
"I honestly would not have read the tooltips in a real situation."
Of the loyalty sign-ups:
“As a New Yorker out on the street or in the shop, that is too many clicks.”
“Be like Starbucks - points, loyalty, and everything else in one section.”
PROTOTYPE
Try it yourself!
Open the Dashible prototype, redeem a discount at OJBK Tea Shop, and sign up to receive loyalty rewards at Mizu Sushi. Click the image!
RESEARCH IMPACT
The benefits of usability over functionality
Stakeholder Impact
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Evangelized the value of UX research and design to the client, who mistook UX work for marketing.
Product Impact
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Product strategy necessitating navigation bar redesign, a pivot backed by research insights.
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Raising the loyalty feature in the page hierarchy resulted in a 96.4% decrease in user click errors compared to the usability test.
"90 to 100% of what [your team] suggested will be integrated in some form or fashion." - Marvin Johnson, Dashible CEO.
REFLECTIONS
New experiences mean new lessons
Addressing Dashible's onboarding and loyalty feature accessibility was my first opportunity to work with a client, cross-functional partners, and a shipped product (Q3 of 2021). And I want to highlight some of the lessons this project taught.
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Employ more quantitative methods, like surveys, to compare usability and satisfaction results analytically.
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No one likes bad news. Diplomacy takes practice.
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Take the initiative when recruiting high-frequency users. Clients are busy people too.