Checklist App

A User Experience Opportunity

What design challenge was I asked to solve?

The client had recently built and launched an app that provides users a way to create to-do-lists and set reminders. The company’s founders wanted a clearer understanding of their target audience and what issues they faced in using the app. They also wanted to know what additional functionality users might want beyond schedules and reminders.

This use case applies a fictional client. The purpose of this use case is to demonstrate my problem-solving methods.

Actions

What was my plan to address this?

After gathering information from the client, the project proposal was used to summarize the reasons and background information for the project. I covered the goals, scope, and defined the work activities and time-line.

PROJECT GOALS

Conduct research to discover whom the target users are.
Probe for what the target users need from the app.
Develop a primary persona to help prioritize app enhancements.
Solve problems within the current app functionality.
Create solutions for incorporating new features.
Test proposed solutions with users to flush out any remaining issues, allowing for adjustments prior to establishing requirements.

Listen to learn

I set out to conduct user experience research on the way people plan and make to-do-lists. I was interested in how they remind themselves of the items on their lists, as well as, understand the typical times/locations they wanted to be reminded.

My approach was to spend 45-60 minutes interviewing each target user. I visited 4 participants in their home environments. I wrote open-ended questions designed to elicit participants’ wants and needs from daily/weekly interactions with to-do-lists and reminders. Following a few warm-up questions, I asked questions like:

What kinds of things do you do to organize your daily activities?
Could you walk me through a typical day? Describe what you do once you get up… /get to work…
What goals do you feel the reminders help you accomplish?
Do you usually get to everything on your to-do-list? If not, what happens to those items?

Table Describing Participants (click images to enlarge)

Synthesis of Interviews

Following the interviews, I looked for what the participants had in common. They all shared very similar goals such as, greater productivity, motivation, time-efficiency, and the need to feel more relaxed. The success criteria was consistent for all - attaining items on list and enjoying the satisfaction of checking or crossing them off.

I also noted what varied between them. They had different techniques for dealing with left over items on lists, different organizational structures for their lists, and different preferences for getting reminders.

“Participants varied in their preference to either check items off or completely cross them out. But they all derived satisfaction from being able to apply an indication that the list item was completed.”

Define What Was Learned

Once I completed synthesizing the interviews, I put together a table to better organize what I had learned. I listed the subject, captured my proposed change, my reasoning, and how it would provide a differentiator from other lists/reminder apps.

Findings for app enhancements:

Allow apps to synch up and share content. Families or groups need the ability to work together to get things done and make more efficient use of their time.
Reminders with snooze functionality, or when they arrive at a store and receive a notice that a synced family member has a list for that location. Users only find reminders handy when they know they’re likely to be distracted.
Allow image attachments in order to facilitate easier communication.

“Participant commented that she would want the app to be smart enough to ‘read’ the picture and populate the digital list with the items from the written list.”

Persona

The research revealed that the primary persona was a 30-45 year old, well-educated, busy professional with a family and home. An experienced app user who is highly motivated to be organized, save time, and feel productive. This persona also used calendars and lists extensively, and set reminders occasionally. Several features came out of the user interviews and were incorporated into the primary persona. The persona informed the design tenets and prioritized the app enhancements.

Design Tenets derived from persona

These were the basic guidelines for teams to keep in mind while generating concepts and forming solutions.

The app is meant for daily, repeated use. The design needs to be efficient, saving the user time, not getting in the way. Must be able to enter items quickly.
Basic organization and flexibility is key. Users need the ability to move and group related list items easily.
People like to checkmark or put a line through completed list items. They like to discard lists as well. It’s satisfying and motivating.
People love calendars, as well as lists. Think about expected features that come with calendars, married with usefulness of lists and reminders.

Work-flows & High-level Wireframes

Keeping findings and design tenets in mind, I sketched workflows and high-level wireframes to address problems within the current app functionality and illustrate solutions for incorporating new features. High-level designs demonstrated the key actions customers could perform with the app’s enhanced capabilities. Both artifacts highlight the “share content feature”. It was initially added under a List’s Edit/Set Preferences.

Test the Prototype

Because the project needed to move along quickly and in a cost-effective way, I conducted moderated usability testing with four target participants using low-fidelity paper prototypes. They were asked to talk aloud while they performed 4 tasks. Each session was captured on video.

The objective of the testing was to learn:

If the new features were discoverable and useful
If the application was functional and usable
If any areas of the app stood out as especially frustrating or delightful to users

Solution Assessment & Recommendations

After analyzing the participants’ actions and feedback I provided prioritized recommendations. All recommendations were addressed in the final set of workflows and wireframes, however, the “share content feature”, is the example shown here.

The “share content feature” was tested through one of the scenario questions in the user testing. The results showed that 3 out of 4 users, A, did not notice “Edit” and B, did not intuitively think that “Edit” would lead to sharing a list. This was a high priority to rethink and correct.

Test script and recommendations highlighting the “share content” scenario.

“Most users did not notice ‘Edit’ right away, and when they did, they did not intuitively think to go there for sharing the list. This feature ranked high with the users in terms of what delights them and what they find useful about the app.”

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Refine & Repeat

I iterated on flows and wireframe designs in response to the outcomes of the user testing. The main change that I made to the “share content feature” was to add a sub-menu slide-out to the List page. This elevated “Share List” so that is was no longer under “Edit”. And it repositioned “Edit”, as well as, “Set Reminder” and “Add Photo” for improved discoverability.

“She liked the sharing list capability with other family members. Thought she would be able to use that with a camping trip. She thinks she would only use this for list/task driven things. Otherwise would rely on Google calendar.”

Results

What were the results of my work?

The process uncovered a simpler and more direct way for users to add new lists and list items. It led to the incorporation of new features, such as, synced devices & shared lists, attached photos, and greater customization of snooze alerts and done signifiers.

Lessons Learned

What did this project teach me about research, design, or myself?

Research must be conducted in such a way as not to influence the user in any particular direction. And when conducted reasonably well, it is amazing the information that comes out, and all one has to do is listen. The most challenging part of listening is accepting what people are trying to say without your own biases or opinions getting in the way. Also interesting is testing just a handful of target users results in common experiences. Where one stumbles, most all stumble, allowing identification of problem areas to be quite clear.