Savepoint

SUMMARY:

Hotel splits for cosplay/anime/gaming con circuit are a headache to arrange. The Savepoint app was founded to facilitate sharing accommodations with other con-goers to make their experience more fun and affordable. My team and I were approached by the Savepoint designer to provide recommendations for future iterations of the app. We focused on the effectiveness of the app’s interface, the user experience it provides, and whether it matches the way users think about finding roommates.

Role: UX researcher

Team: Savepoint designers, 2 user rsearchers and myself

METHODS: google survey, usability testing (lookback.io), focus group

DATE: 2018 (3 monthS)

TYPE: mobile app

COMPANY: savepoint app 

Study Goals:

The goal of this project was to perform a concept analysis of the Savepoint mobile app. by:

• Designing Validation (of a primary feature and several future design concepts for Savepoint).

• Eliciting feedback from participants to inform design direction of the app.

• Identifying obstacles to desired outcomes and pain points.

• Determining if the participants would be willing to pay for this service application.

Study approach:

The team worked together to determine the most efficient methods to reach our goals. We put together a plan and decided to utilize the following methods to evaluate Savepoint and address the above research questions.

1. We designed a pre-test survey study to understand the participants’ goals and needs with the current design. We targeted a selected type of participant to test with (demographics, needs/interests, current behaviors). The target personas, created from earlier studies, helped the team narrow the audience (age, past level of attendance to conventions , education level, interests). These data were used to vet our usability subjects.

2. We worked with the design manager/founder of Savepoint to prioritize tasks for the new feature design. We created a series of scenarios that walked the participants through completion of tasks:

   • Reactions to the home page

   • Booking and planning an event - checking dates, finding hotel, and lodging information

   • getting matched with roommates

3. Once a moderator’s guide was created, our test tasks and the order of the test were confirmed. The moderator guide provided prompts for us to refer back to on test day, so that each test was proctored with the same instructions for each participant. The guide also included probing questions. Two product developers assisted in the creation of tasks. The developer selected the content of each task, and we consulted with them about the relevancy to our user test. We worked with the developer to properly design our usability study (in what order the tasks should occur and how much activity is necessary for each task).

Usability Study

Recruitment was facilitated by the founder of Savepoint, by posting google form screeners on several social media groups that engaged cosplayers. An honorarium for participants was included in the invitation to participate in the research session.

Test Subjects

Our subjects were:

• ages of 19 to 25

• travelers who attended large events

• tech savvy and used to social media

• careful with money

• social enough to tolerate or enjoy sharing accommodations

On test day, we completed 10 separate usability tests, testing 2 participants at a time. We addressed the formalities first (reviewing the consent form and honorariums).

Lookback.io logged a collection of qualitative data (verbal feedback, body language) as well as quantitative data (time on task, number of keystrokes). The recordings helped us review footage and confirm all collected data were correct. We also had participants use a think-aloud protocol to vocalize their thoughts while going through the tasks. The video records were approved to show by participants.

We followed up with a focus group discussion to dive deeper into certain behaviors and thought processes.

Deliverables:

• Usability testing spreadsheet (see below) with detailed findings and design recommendations for areas for improvement. The report provided feedback on users' preferences regarding the overall flow, visuals, and content of the design and their logic behind

• Design validation report with detailed user satisfaction and pain points. The report presented general user feedback on the concepts, user flows, and recommendations regarding design enhancements to address usability issues and unmet user expectations

• We informed the designer of what worked and what did not, in terms of the overall flow, visuals, content, and provided evidence to help them make decisions on the priority level of the action items for the next release. 

Reflections:

• “Usability testing is reactive research.”-Jared Spool. A lot of the users were offended by the lack of transgender and nonbinary inclusion in the app. It signaled that the designer hasn’t done enough “proactive research” to show any support for gender diverse individuals.

• Users preferred pronoun and/or name options in the app.