Democracy Now Redesign Mobile Design 2Michael Schafer

06/08/2017

Final Project

Empathy Maps:

NAME: Lisa

TASKS: What tasks are users trying to complete? Lisa is trying to get “todays” information. Preferably in the morning so that she can feel informed and current with the world events. What questions do they need answered? What is important today and why. For Lisa events that she feels drawn to are environmental and foreign policy.

INFLUENCES: What people, things or places may influence how the user acts? Lisa will typically use the app or other news apps when she is at the house. She prefers to watch the news from the TV.

OVERALL GOAL: What is the users ultimate goal? Lisa would like to see what the current events are. She would like to be able to absorb this information quickly. She would then like to go back and dig deeper into what was most interesting to her. What are they trying to achieve? She wants to know whats going on in the world, she thinks it’s important for us all to be informed with current events.

PAIN POINTS: What pain points might the user be experiencing that they hope to overcome? She feels that the “headlines” and “stories” CTA is unclear and confusing. She think that Google News has a better filatration system.

FEELINGS: How is the user feeling about the experience? What really matters to them? The typography is boring and bland. Too minimal, needs to have a better sense of hierarchy. She doesn’t want to always have to tap the “back” button after clicking on a headline or story. She likes the swipe feature from article to article that other news apps have seemed to adopt.

NAME: Nick

TASKS: What tasks are users trying to complete? Nick wants investigative journalist stories that are easily accessible. What questions do they need answered? What is going on in the world today. He doesn’t trust that main steam media is covering meaningful stories.

INFLUENCES: What people, things or places may influence how the user acts? Nick will more often than not use the pod-cast that Democracy Now offers thorough iOS. He likes how straight froward it is. He likes that the app has transcripts. You can obtain more information if needed or interested.

OVERALL GOAL: What is the users ultimate goal? Nick’s goal is to stay current with the worlds events. He likes the storytelling aspect of pod-casts. He doesn’t need the video component. What are they trying to achieve? What is going on that in the world that he should know about? He likes to stay educated about the current administrations dealings, and likes more investigative journalism.

PAIN POINTS: What pain points might the user be experiencing that they hope to overcome? Buttons are inconstant and mis leading. “Design feels too heavy.” He would like for the content to be more filtered, the navigation bar is not utilized to it’s full potential. There is just a never ending stream of stories in chronological order and that feels daunting.

FEELINGS: How is the user feeling about the experience? What really matters to them? Not as familiar with the app as he is with the pod-cast. He prefers the pod-casts convenience. Although it is nice to have the transcripts, the apps seems to allow the user to dig deeper into the app.

NAME: Dan

TASKS: What tasks are users trying to complete? Dans main task is to absorb daily news. What questions do they need answered? He wants to stay informed. He feels obligated to take personal responsibility in understand the worlds current events.

INFLUENCES: What people, things or places may influence how the user acts? Dan likes the audio component because it eats up less data and can conserve battery life. When he is at home he wishes that the app would have a Chrome-cast link so that he could stream to his TV. Youtube allows this so at times he chooses it over the app. The benefit to video over only audio is that he may multitask. Less committed to interacting with the phone to provide the info.

OVERALL GOAL: What is the users ultimate goal? To consume news from a source that is non profit and doesn’t have to appease a corporate agenda. The content provided typically reaches beyond that of most conventional news sources. What are they trying to achieve? Stay informed and listen to the “headline” for at least 15 minutes a day.

PAIN POINTS: What pain points might the user be experiencing that they hope to overcome? Wants to link up to Chrome-cast with ease. Would like to have the ability to view on a larger screen without having to switch over to Youtube.

FEELINGS: How is the user feeling about the experience? What really matters to them? Dan is impressed with the app. He feels that for a non-profit they have a clean design and that its easy to digest. The app is consistant with the rest of the brands identity. It’s simple, and isn’t trying to do too much.

Storyboards:

Visual User Flows:

User Test, Script and Summary:

Hey there, _________. My name is Michael Schafer, and I’m going to be walking you through a series of questions. I’m sure you already know, but let me explain why I’ve asked you here today: I’m testing an app that I’ve been redesigning and would like to see how functional it is for people like you who might use it.I want to make it clear right away that I’m testing the site, not you. You can’t do anything wrong here today. So no need to worry about making a mistake.I want to hear exactly what you think, so please don’t worry that you’re going to hurt my feelings. I want to improve the site, so I need to know honestly what you think. Keep in mind that this is a mid fidelity prototype, we are focusing more on the hierarchy of information and the overall usability.As we go along, I’m going to ask you to think out loud, to tell me what’s going through your mind. This will help me to decide what need’s the most work.If you have questions, please ask. I may not be able to answer them right away, since I’m interested in how people do when they don’t have someone sitting next to them, but I will try to answer any questions you still have when we’re done.I’m going to try to keep us moving along with this user test, but we’ll try to make sure that this is a fun experience, too! User tests questions and tasks• TASK 1 Can you please complete the on boarding process and think aloud as you work through it? Straight forward, and all good. • What do you think the navigation buttons do from left to right?• What do you imagine the pages will look like? Is this what you expected?• What do you think of the layout of the page? Do you notice any new features?• What features are most important to you?• What would you like to see improved about this feature?• TASK 2 Can you please donate $10 to Democracy Now? Please think aloud as you work through this task• What do you think you can do on this page? Please think aloud so that I can understand what it is you are interacting with.• TASK 3 Can you add a audio file to your “favorites” Please think aloud as you work through this task

Summary: Overall the users were happy with the redesign. They felt that the navigation bar’s redesign was easy to understand, and that there was a greater sense of hierarchy. There were a few suggestions that I implemented. One suggestion that was brought significant clarity was the ‘download when on wifi feature’. The user Dan stated, that the attractiveness of the iOS podcast’s app is the users’ ability to download shows when on wifi. This insight led me to add the download when on wifi feature to the ‘More’ page. Users would now have the option to utilize a feature when anticipating expensive data rates or lack of cell service on road trips.The users expressed that the navigation bar’s layout was intuitive, but they felt that the order of the pages was incorrect. A user’s eyes view a page from left to right. Having the more tab on the left was cognitively incorrect, and misrepresented the hierarchy of information. I created a new layout based on user testimonies. The layout currently consists of icons for: ‘Home (Headlines)’, ‘Audio’, ‘Video’, and ‘More’. Adding a trending feature will help encourage users to be more active, and, ultimately, generate an increase of total daily active users. Stories can now be voted up to the top of the ‘trending’ feed, where before the stories were buried in a chronological order.

Evidence of Iteration (What changes did you make as a result of user testing and annotate a design noting the changes)

As you can see the design is completely refined and leaner. The navigation bar make much more sense, taking into consideration Gutenberg’s diagram. The download when on Wi-Fi option urges users to

take advantage of the native app over the iOS podcast app. When you view the app walk through on the Wordpress Blog you will notice the changes and the value

Visual Design:This shows all the screen, side by side.