How To Approach a Mobile App Redesign
Content
How To Approach a Mobile App Redesign
Hello, my name is Amanda Morrow and I’m the interactive designer at BitMethod, a five person web and mobile application development team located in Des Moines, IA. We build cool things and help other people figure out how to build their own cool stuff. I joined the team back in June 2010 and this presentation goes over the things I’ve learned while redesigning an iOS app.
DEFINE REDESIGN
Reviewing the user interface, layout, interaction, feature set and then visuals.
HOW A REDESIGN IS DIFFERENT
• • •
The app is functional. We have users and they have feedback. Our users have developed a relationship with the app.
Right off the bat, I want to provide you with my definition of redesign for the sake of this presentation. As an interactive designer, I’m looking at more than just the visuals. A few things that make a redesign different from designing an entirely new app: 1) The app is already functional so we can use it, test it out and figure out how it works. 2) We also have users who have been using the app and providing us with feedback. 3) These users have developed a relationship with our app, so we have to be careful not to stray too far away from the objectives of the original app.
EAT SLEEP
•
An iPhone app for tracking when your baby eats, sleeps and needs a diaper change. Focus was on simplicity and making it easy to use for busy moms. BitMethod released free version in March of 2010. It currently gets an average of 20,000 ad impressions per day through iAd and AdMob.
•
•
•
The app I’m going to discuss is called Eat Sleep. It’s an iOS app for parents wanting to track the eating, sleeping and diaper patterns of their newborn babies. BitMethod originally released Eat Sleep as a paid app, but back in March 2010 they decided to release a free version. Since then, it has started to pick up steam. Because I’m the new guy, I was given the task of approaching the redesign from an outsider’s perspective and revisiting the UI to find improvements.
THINGS TO CONSIDER
Here are some things I found helpful during this process.
WHO IS YOUR USER?
•
Who finds your app useful and why? What is important to them? Create a profile of the user you are targeting.
EAT SLEEP USER
•
• •
Busy moms with newborns. Don’t have time to enter a million things into an app. They need to track key things for their doctor. They are probably tired.
•
•
•
The most important task is figuring out who is your user. What would they find useful and what is important to them? You need to create a profile of this user containing specifics about their personality and lifestyle. This will help you make decisions later on. For Eat Sleep, we are targeting busy moms who don’t have time to track (and enter into their phones) every single little thing their baby does, however, these moms still want to track key information for their doctors.
HOW DO THEY INTERACT?
•
Do they use the app for 20 seconds or 20 minutes? Are they using it to enter something or just view information? Where and when are they using the app?
EAT SLEEP INTERACTIONS
•
•
Mothers might be holding a baby. They need something quick. They might use it to provide information to their doctor.
•
•
•
The next step is looking at how your users interact with the app. How long and how often will they use it and what are they using it for? Will they be using it a few times a day for a few seconds, or only once a day but for 20 minutes? Where will they be using it? At home? At Work? At the grocery store? For Eat Sleep, our users may be holding a baby so they might only have one hand available to use the app. Since they are busy, their interactions will need to be quick. They may be using this at home or where ever they take their baby. They may need to access information at the doctor’s office. We also considered what information users need to provide to the doctor, if something is wrong.
WHAT DO USERS HAVE TO SAY?
•
If you have reviews, read them. Solicit users for feedback. Pinpoint what your users appreciate the most and what they dislike. Minor adjustments can make a huge difference.
• •
“is app is great. Very easy to use. I just wish you could track multiple babies as I am a mother of twins. Also, it doesn’t track half ounces properly.”
•
This step is where having an existing app is incredibly helpful. If your users have provided feedback, you can use this while making design decisions. We browsed the reviews in the app store and took notes. Sometimes reviews contained just minor suggestions, but these were often easy to fix and made a huge difference. You can also get a sense of what your users appreciate the most and what they truly dislike. If you don’t have enough feedback from your users, sometimes you can solicit it from them. It’s becoming more common to see a pop-up after opening an app that asks you to rate it.
WHAT ELSE IS OUT THERE?
•
Size up your competition to find best practices. Find things that would work well with for your target users. Execute them better.
•
•
The next step is to size up your competition. This is a great way to find best practices and features that might be beneficial to your users. You can find what they do well and sometimes, do it better. For Eat Sleep, I researched all the other baby apps, looking at their feature lists and reviews and taking notes of what would work well for my users. By having a specific user in mind, I was really able to focus in on what would be the best features to include in the app.
WHAT BENEFITS ARE YOU PROVIDING?
•
You have a target user and a huge list of features, now what benefits are you providing to your users? Focus on what’s most important first. Edit, edit, edit. Don’t try to solve every problem.
EAT SLEEP BENEFITS
•
Simple, easy to use and quick. Ability to enter information at any time. Efficiently track only the information they need. Ability to view trends.
•
•
•
•
•
Now that you have a clear idea of who your users are and what features would benefit them. You need to start editing your feature list down to just the bare necessities. For Eat Sleep, these benefits were providing users with something easy and quick to use. An app that allows them to enter information in at any time and track only the information that is necessary. Finally, we wanted them to be able to view trends.
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT?
• • •
One touch interface. No timers. Track the main three events, but add a custom note section. Move totals and trends to their own screens. Additional features and options fall under the settings section.
•
•
After all this, I began sketching and laying out wireframes. Making design decisions was so much easier when referencing a user profile and a well-thought-out list of benefits and features. For Eat Sleep, we made it a priority to have a one touch interface so users can enter information with only a few clicks of the thumb (for when one arm is full). The competition often used timers, but we decided to stray away from this so parents don’t have to remember to turn off a timer and can enter information later (for instance, once the baby goes to bed).
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT?
• • •
One touch interface. No timers. Track the main three events, but add a custom note section. Move totals and trends to their own screens. Additional features and options fall under the settings section.
•
•
We decided eating, sleeping and diapers are the main things a parent needs to track, but for the miscellaneous items we provided a note section where parents can enter in whatever they want such as baths, medicine, etc. Finally, instead of listing daily totals at the top of the page like the original app, we decided to add a second view where users can compare totals and averages by day, week or month.
FINAL RESULT
Once wireframes were complete, I was able to create the actual pixel perfect mock-ups. Although a few things changed during the design stage, all decisions were still made with the user profile and benefits list in mind. Once mock-ups are complete, we will move onto development and testing and then relaunch. Initially, the relaunch will contain just a few basic features and then we will build upon that and add more with each additional version.
AMANDA MORROW
[email protected]
Twitter: @amandamorrow
Hello, my name is Amanda Morrow and I’m the interactive designer at BitMethod, a five person web and mobile application development team located in Des Moines, IA. We build cool things and help other people figure out how to build their own cool stuff. I joined the team back in June 2010 and this presentation goes over the things I’ve learned while redesigning an iOS app.
DEFINE REDESIGN
Reviewing the user interface, layout, interaction, feature set and then visuals.
HOW A REDESIGN IS DIFFERENT
• • •
The app is functional. We have users and they have feedback. Our users have developed a relationship with the app.
Right off the bat, I want to provide you with my definition of redesign for the sake of this presentation. As an interactive designer, I’m looking at more than just the visuals. A few things that make a redesign different from designing an entirely new app: 1) The app is already functional so we can use it, test it out and figure out how it works. 2) We also have users who have been using the app and providing us with feedback. 3) These users have developed a relationship with our app, so we have to be careful not to stray too far away from the objectives of the original app.
EAT SLEEP
•
An iPhone app for tracking when your baby eats, sleeps and needs a diaper change. Focus was on simplicity and making it easy to use for busy moms. BitMethod released free version in March of 2010. It currently gets an average of 20,000 ad impressions per day through iAd and AdMob.
•
•
•
The app I’m going to discuss is called Eat Sleep. It’s an iOS app for parents wanting to track the eating, sleeping and diaper patterns of their newborn babies. BitMethod originally released Eat Sleep as a paid app, but back in March 2010 they decided to release a free version. Since then, it has started to pick up steam. Because I’m the new guy, I was given the task of approaching the redesign from an outsider’s perspective and revisiting the UI to find improvements.
THINGS TO CONSIDER
Here are some things I found helpful during this process.
WHO IS YOUR USER?
•
Who finds your app useful and why? What is important to them? Create a profile of the user you are targeting.
EAT SLEEP USER
•
• •
Busy moms with newborns. Don’t have time to enter a million things into an app. They need to track key things for their doctor. They are probably tired.
•
•
•
The most important task is figuring out who is your user. What would they find useful and what is important to them? You need to create a profile of this user containing specifics about their personality and lifestyle. This will help you make decisions later on. For Eat Sleep, we are targeting busy moms who don’t have time to track (and enter into their phones) every single little thing their baby does, however, these moms still want to track key information for their doctors.
HOW DO THEY INTERACT?
•
Do they use the app for 20 seconds or 20 minutes? Are they using it to enter something or just view information? Where and when are they using the app?
EAT SLEEP INTERACTIONS
•
•
Mothers might be holding a baby. They need something quick. They might use it to provide information to their doctor.
•
•
•
The next step is looking at how your users interact with the app. How long and how often will they use it and what are they using it for? Will they be using it a few times a day for a few seconds, or only once a day but for 20 minutes? Where will they be using it? At home? At Work? At the grocery store? For Eat Sleep, our users may be holding a baby so they might only have one hand available to use the app. Since they are busy, their interactions will need to be quick. They may be using this at home or where ever they take their baby. They may need to access information at the doctor’s office. We also considered what information users need to provide to the doctor, if something is wrong.
WHAT DO USERS HAVE TO SAY?
•
If you have reviews, read them. Solicit users for feedback. Pinpoint what your users appreciate the most and what they dislike. Minor adjustments can make a huge difference.
• •
“is app is great. Very easy to use. I just wish you could track multiple babies as I am a mother of twins. Also, it doesn’t track half ounces properly.”
•
This step is where having an existing app is incredibly helpful. If your users have provided feedback, you can use this while making design decisions. We browsed the reviews in the app store and took notes. Sometimes reviews contained just minor suggestions, but these were often easy to fix and made a huge difference. You can also get a sense of what your users appreciate the most and what they truly dislike. If you don’t have enough feedback from your users, sometimes you can solicit it from them. It’s becoming more common to see a pop-up after opening an app that asks you to rate it.
WHAT ELSE IS OUT THERE?
•
Size up your competition to find best practices. Find things that would work well with for your target users. Execute them better.
•
•
The next step is to size up your competition. This is a great way to find best practices and features that might be beneficial to your users. You can find what they do well and sometimes, do it better. For Eat Sleep, I researched all the other baby apps, looking at their feature lists and reviews and taking notes of what would work well for my users. By having a specific user in mind, I was really able to focus in on what would be the best features to include in the app.
WHAT BENEFITS ARE YOU PROVIDING?
•
You have a target user and a huge list of features, now what benefits are you providing to your users? Focus on what’s most important first. Edit, edit, edit. Don’t try to solve every problem.
EAT SLEEP BENEFITS
•
Simple, easy to use and quick. Ability to enter information at any time. Efficiently track only the information they need. Ability to view trends.
•
•
•
•
•
Now that you have a clear idea of who your users are and what features would benefit them. You need to start editing your feature list down to just the bare necessities. For Eat Sleep, these benefits were providing users with something easy and quick to use. An app that allows them to enter information in at any time and track only the information that is necessary. Finally, we wanted them to be able to view trends.
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT?
• • •
One touch interface. No timers. Track the main three events, but add a custom note section. Move totals and trends to their own screens. Additional features and options fall under the settings section.
•
•
After all this, I began sketching and laying out wireframes. Making design decisions was so much easier when referencing a user profile and a well-thought-out list of benefits and features. For Eat Sleep, we made it a priority to have a one touch interface so users can enter information with only a few clicks of the thumb (for when one arm is full). The competition often used timers, but we decided to stray away from this so parents don’t have to remember to turn off a timer and can enter information later (for instance, once the baby goes to bed).
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT?
• • •
One touch interface. No timers. Track the main three events, but add a custom note section. Move totals and trends to their own screens. Additional features and options fall under the settings section.
•
•
We decided eating, sleeping and diapers are the main things a parent needs to track, but for the miscellaneous items we provided a note section where parents can enter in whatever they want such as baths, medicine, etc. Finally, instead of listing daily totals at the top of the page like the original app, we decided to add a second view where users can compare totals and averages by day, week or month.
FINAL RESULT
Once wireframes were complete, I was able to create the actual pixel perfect mock-ups. Although a few things changed during the design stage, all decisions were still made with the user profile and benefits list in mind. Once mock-ups are complete, we will move onto development and testing and then relaunch. Initially, the relaunch will contain just a few basic features and then we will build upon that and add more with each additional version.
AMANDA MORROW
[email protected]
Twitter: @amandamorrow
