UX Analysis: Utilize research to understand the needs of the user by implementing services that express the perception of convenience.
UX RESEARCH
2023
PROJECT BRIEF
When are you going on holiday? Are your friends coming with you? Tricount:the app that helps you share expenses with the people in your life.
During this research analysis, there were numerous design challenges to overcome, especially during the first interaction of the process. Contextualizing each step of the project enriched the design decision made along the way. The aim was to explore the UX of convenience for the Tricount app, by allowing the user’s insights to guide the research and the outcome to become more and more effective.
At this stage the aim was to analyse the app and evaluate the interactions to better understand the user need as well as better understand the app purpose. As the research went on, new finds were revealed from apps stakeholders to the UI. The research
question for this stage was quite open allowing the flow of the research to guide the action needed. Question: What is the main input and output of this app in relation to its stakeholders?
During this preparatory research, it was possible to determinate, at least in part, some use cases and determine key points that could inform the type of user persona later on. This was an effort to better understand the research question on the second stage of this process and to take a more actionable approach.
Here below are some of Tricount’s competitors followed by costumer’s review. In considering these parameters, it was possible to determine Tricount’s placement in the market in relationship to its possible costumers.
AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHY
This process involved navigating the app and analysing the interaction chosen (input and output). This will then help make an inform decision all throughout the UX process.
question for this stage was quite open allowing the flow of the research to guide the action needed. Question: What is the main input and output of this app in relation to its stakeholders?
Here is the exploration of the input section, investigating the steps present in this app when creating a new expense.
Here is the discovery of the output section, investigating the expenses page after the input is sent. This will help to identify potential faults in terms of UX of convenience.
ONLINE AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHY
The online auto-ethnography process is quite key to understanding the needs of existing users. By joining a Tricount community on Reddit, it was possible to analyse in detail the research question and set up actionable tasks for further development.
CONTEXTUAL INTERVIEW
For the contextual interview the process was to find 5 participants that use the app or have used the app before and can give some insights of their experience. This was done to accommodate a well structure and reliable research document. All the participants were gathered using snowball sampling, asking the first participant to recommended someone else that uses the app and so on. This allowed the research to not use convenient sampling, validating even more the sources in this stage
NO PARTECIPANT APPROACH
Considering the above, the aim of the “non participant approach” is to observe people buying products in the university cafeteria. In doing so, being able to see their body language and analyse how they react when spending money. Investigating the Tricount
goal to alleviate the stress of managing money and being able to track weekly or monthly money balance. To collect quantitative date this research need a sample of at least 8 people.
RESEARCH WALL
On the research wall, key elements are shown; this is done to accommodate, in the next stage, actionable operations that can lead to an informed design creation of a high-fidelity prototype. As presented here below, the focus is around the three stakeholders for Tricount evaluating their need and therefore the convenience of using the app in certain situations.
CREATING PERSONAS
The next step of the service design process was to create user personas. In doing so, the research allowed to explore in more detail the needs of specific customers. Here below are three examples of potential users based on the research done previously; flat shares, couples and travellers.
JOURNEY MAP
This is an important stage of the research. A journey map can be very helpful in identifying gaps within the user’s experience and their interaction with the app. By building these scenarios specifically, it was possible to identify Carlo’s journey and find
informed design solutions.
MAPPING SYSTEM
After the Journey Map, a System Map was designed. The system map includes key components such as; stakeholders, features, and use cases. All the above informed Tricount input and output interactions. The benefits of this visualisation are showing the relationship between the app and the user as well as their interdependency. In this instance we can see the connection between internal stakeholders (flat sharers and travellers) and external once (friends, profession, income, place visited and residency).
PROTOTYPE PROPOSAL
Now that the problems have been identified by the journey map and the system map, it was possible to build a visual representation of the interaction, highlighting the existing features as well as the possible solutions.
KEY INSIGHTS
The requirements of the key insights are wrapped around the idea of finding “aim, need and outcome’ for the user(s). In doing so, identifying problems as well as possible solutions. In this case, based on the research, Tricount needs to develop a categorisation system for its users. In doing so, preventing confusion for both occasional and everyday users. This implementation will help stakeholders to organise their expenses pages and conveniently fix the interaction between input to output.
TAKEAWAYS
In summary, adding a categorisation option to the expenses page was essential. By first improving the input (the add expenses page) and incorporating the categorisation feature, the output (the list of expenses) became much clearer for the user. This enhancement allowed users to manage their expenses more conveniently, reducing the stress and awkwardness of sharing bills with others, and thereby significantly improving the overall user experience.
SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES USED ▼
Secondary Research
Auto Ethnographic Research
Online Ethnographic Research
Non Participant Observation
Research Wall
Creating Personas
System Mapping
Generating Key Insight