Role
User Research
Product Strategy
UI Design
Interaction Design
Usability Testing
Tools
Figjam
Notion
Maze
Figma
Dovetail
Otter
Timeline
5 weeks
MyPlace's users do not yet trust them- putting your home on the internet can be daunting without proper reassurance that their information will be secure. Without this trust, users may feel unwilling to participate in sharing their homes. Users have many questions about MyPlace's features that are not answered easily in the current design.
In addition, the sharing of homes in groups is a key part of MyPlace's business goals. Without addressing the issue of trust users may not use the product, resulting in an inactive user base.
The Solution
To combat the lack of trust, we focused on improving on increasing the transparency of information privacy as well as improving navigation and clarifying services. We introduced new screens to provide users with more control over their experiences, as well as opportunities for video instruction.
Usability Review
Our usability review found inconsistencies in style across the product as well as vague information about the product.
Research Interviews
With the usability review completed, we turned to potential users for their input. After creating interview scripts, we interviewed two users about MyPlace. We wanted to learn why users may feel unwilling to upload their homes, what we can do to alleviate their worries, and to confirm our problem space. Using Otter.Ai and Dovetail, we created affinity maps of our data.
Our research yielded two main frustrations:
Primary Frustration
When new users consider joining the group experience on MyPlace, they are wary that the community is not private. This results in a limited user base.
Secondary Frustration
When new users browse MyPlace, they are unsure of what features are offered, what the rules are for each home listing, and the specific details about who is in their groups. This makes the learnability and efficiency rate low for users.
Problem Space
New users on the group function in MyPlace are unwilling to upload their homes when joining groups due to a lack of trust in the platform and product and lack of clarification about the product's features. This is important for business goals- if users are unwilling to upload their homes, the product will not have an active user base.
With that said, how might we better educate users on the product's features while encouraging them to share their homes in the group feature?
Information Architecture
With our research insights gathered, we moved on to mapping the information architecture of the product. By doing so, we gained a better understanding of how to improve the hierarchy of information.
Ideation
Some ideation methods we used to generate a variety of ideas were mind maps, crazy 8's, and rapid prototyping in low fidelity.
Rapid Prototyping
Below is one of our rapid prototypes- sketched out in low fidelity under a time constraint. It features the group member filter and sorting window that became a part of our final prototype.
Style Guide
We incorporated a bright orange as an accent color while keeping the rest of the design more muted. By defining our style guide early on in the process, we were able to have consistency throughout the product.
High Fidelity Prototype
Here is our final high fidelity redesign prototype.
Three key learnings
1. Mapping out the affinity maps and information architecture of a product is incredibly helpful for understanding the product and creating possible solutions.
2. Include all possible users when defining the problem- not just the ones you expected.
3. Improvements do not have to be drastic in order to better the user's experiences.
Next steps
Had I had more time, I would have run a usability test on Maze with a pool of sample users, then used those insights to iterate on my process. By doing so, I would be able to improve our ideas and create a better prototype.