1 Overview
2 Context
2.1 Setting the scene
2.2 My involvement
2.3 The problem
2.4 Supporting data
03 Approach
Design process
Research
Synthesis
04 Design
Ideation
Phases
Features
05 Outcome
Problem to impact
Testing
Learning

1 Overview

Skills

UX, UI, Wireframing, Product Strategy, User Research, Usability Testing, Prototyping

Time

April-May 2021

Tools

Figma, Miro, Notion, Maze, Typeform

What?

I worked with a small team of designers to iterate on Anyone. The app allows you to ask experts burning questions in 5 min calls - and was one of the top media products to look out for in 2021.

Why?

When looking for specific information on a topic online, people often struggle to find exactly they are after. The information they do find is often too specific, too generic or just not what they need. This causes immense frustration and confusion.

74% of customers feel frustrated when website content is not personalised.

How?

The solution was to design new features for improved content personalisation and filtering. Through a new (and unseen) onboarding process, users can input their topics of interest. These topics are then presented within the new filtering feature, as easily edited and selected pills - which changes the content the user sees. I also introduced more thoughtful ways to organise conversation cards.

2 Context

2.1 Setting the scene

A one-to-one audio calling app, caps calls at five minutes and lets advisers set prices (taking a 20 per cent cut). Founded in 2020. Invite-only. 10,000+ waitlist. Advisers offer micro-mentoring on business and careers, mental health, long-distance running and even gardening.

Win-win for students (get to work on a real world app with a lot of real world buzz) and Anyone (get to hear the fresh ideas and perspectives of junior designers, keen to solve issues within the app).

“You can achieve so much more in a short period of time than you think, as long as you set the context correctly” - CEO, David Orlic

Real world buzz

Logo

2.2 My involvement

Total involvement in the entire product development process: from discovery and research, to designing the solution and testing with users. During the 2 month process, I worked with one other designer in lockstep through discovery, define, develop stages (collaborating in live, remote design sessions on Figma, Figjam and Miro) and went separate directions when designing a solution.

2.3 The problem

Identify an unmet user need within the app, and develop a solution for that need through a full product design process.

“We’re doing some things okay, but we could do more to help discover and curate, and find the right advisors and the right topics for you…

…I’m really open minded as to how we do this…

…I want to turn the explore screen into somewhere where it’s easier to find the right topics and the right advisors…

…and also think about how we can recommend things for the individual”

Sam Ducker (co-founder) explaining the problem

2.4 Supporting data

Instapage

Econsultancy

Adobe

Statista

03 Approach

Design process

I used the Double Diamond design process because it is:

Simple, flexible
Tried, tested, industry standard
Provides a visual shape to creativity, allowing you to easily map your progress
Clearly conveys a design process to designers and non-designers alike

The Double Diamond process

Research

Rapid Usability Review

Rationale:

remote
fast, cheap (a typical usability review takes over 100 hours to complete and costs more than $10,000)
get a good foundational understanding of the product
quickly identify user pain points within the app
generally critically evaluate the current version of it

How?

identified several key flows e.g. sign up, calling an advisor
screenshots copied into Miro
green post-it = wow moment, red post-it = pain point

A rapid usability review

👀

Findings

a lot of pain points in the app (was still in closed testing phase)
all the conversation topics were always available (maybe +100 total)
no method for a user to filter it in line with their personal interests
user was expected to do a huge amount of manual searching and scrolling

User Survey

To validate my observations with potential users I conducted a survey using Typeform. It also helped me make sense of potential user behaviour as it gave me insight into their personal experience - in their own words - which informed UX improvements.

The survey consisted of quick, easy to complete, non-leading questions. It offered a mix of rich insights and structured, consistent data that I then analysed for patterns. Some key findings:

90% of respondents struggled to find relevant information on specific, expert topics.
“Finding the niche topics is frustrating. In some cases it's easy to find an answer or tutorial, in others it simply doesn't exist”. Another
“Seeking expert knowledge on any topic can be frustrating.”

Synthesis

Our research told us that users - when seeking expert knowledge - often struggle to find exactly what they are looking for. It can be too specific, too generic, or just not what they need.

Their experience is made worse through poor personalisation and curation options. Understandably, this results in confusion and frustration.

Anyone - an app designed to find expert knowledge - offers very limited filtering functionality and so does not address this user need. It doesn't assist the user throughout the discovery process, instead expecting them to do all the 'heavy lifting' when looking for expert knowledge in the app.

So, providing a solution to this specific frustration would offer the greatest potential value to both user and business. It represents a significant opportunity to improve the UX of the app, and therefore the health of the business.

Before jumping into coming up with ideas, I had to properly frame the opportunity. I did this by generating a how might we statement:

How might we help users find information and topics that are more relevant to their interests?

This:

will be used to structure and bring direction to the subsequent ideation phase
assume a solution exists, and that we can find it together
is broad enough that there are a wide range of solutions, but narrow enough that we have some helpful boundaries.

04 Design

Ideation

Through an ideation stage that included 2 ideation techniques, I came up with a wide range of crazy, creative ideas that addressed the unmet user needs identified in the define phase. This was a creative safe space - no idea was too far fetched!

Following this, I prioritised the ideas based on user value, business value, effort and time. This step allowed me to identify the sweet spot, the goldilocks zone, in which I decided on how I would address the unmet user need - by designing a better way to filter and personalise the app content.

Crazy Ideas: Fast, fun, helps to bring context to different ideas.

Mind Map: Can visualise how ideas are connected or related.

Phases

I rapidly sketched solutions. This helped me quickly map and understand the current product and consider how I could iterate directly in the product.

With the sketches done, I needed to accurately visualise designs in low fidelity wireframes - to act as the skeleton for my solution. To avoid any decision bias I used a neutral colour palette, and then used the Figma Autoflow plugin to quickly convert the static pages into a clickable prototype with transitions and interactions. Following this, I got feedback internally from the design instructors to affirm the design’s effectiveness.

After defining styles and components to easily and quickly help me design consistently, I put together the high fidelity prototype.

Features

1) New interests section allows user to quickly filter content according to their previously entered topics of interest. Topics are featured in simple, interactive pills. The content below will update according to the chosen topic. 2) The redesign features various new groups of content. These are designed to be useful and interesting to the user, offering ready-made lists so the user can quickly find the information they need. 3)The conversation cards have been redesigned to be fun, informal and interesting. They now feature experience level tags, so the user can quickly make a decision.

4) The user can easily update their interests via the update button. A drop down opens to display all the topic categories in interactive pills, each with a corresponding emoji that quickly communicates the theme.

5) An example of a ready-made list of conversation cards. Recommended conversations relating to business. Another e.g. might be popular business conversation. 6) The user can easily filter these cards based on metrics like cost or the rating of the advisor (screen not shown in case study). 7) Again, conversation cards are designed and written to be informal and engaging for the user. They need to quickly judge if it right for them.

8) Another way the redesign organises the content is through ‘packs’. These are small groups of conversations based on a specific user goal. The example seen here is the pack to start a company. 9) More information about the pack is communicated by supporting text.

05 Outcome

Problem to impact

Problem →

“We’re doing some things okay, but we could do more to help discover and curate, and find the right advisors and the right topics for you…

…I want to turn the explore screen into somewhere where it’s easier to find the right topics”

Research + Insight →

When seeking expert knowledge - users often struggle to find exactly what they are looking for. Their experience is made worse through poor personalisation and curation options.

Anyone - an app designed to find expert knowledge - offers very limited filtering functionality and so does not address this user need. It represents a significant opportunity to improve the UX of the app.

Solution →

New features for improved content personalisation and filtering.

New interests section allows user quickly filter content according to their previously entered topics of interest - and is easily updated.

Curated groups of content like recommended lists or packs offer more opportunities for the user to discover topics of interest.

Impact on user + business ✓

I would anticipate that users could more easily navigate the app and discover content that matches their interests.

This would lead to an increase in engagement, retention and overall user satisfaction.

Testing

To validate the prototype, I formed a testing script with scenario and 3 x tasks for the user to complete. I used Maze and gathered written feedback following every task. In addition to the written feedback from the testers, I would also look at Maze's 'Usability Score', which measures the ease of my maze tasks by calculating key performance indicators: mission success & duration, test exits, and mis-clicks.

The results from my unmoderated test were mixed and filled with learnings.

Learning

There were some valuable learnings encountered on the journey.

Since the project, Anyone have implemented features that are similar to my own proposed solutions.

Specifically, curated lists of content that look similar to my pack lists. They’ve also added a feature that allows the individuals to switch between personal topics via tags/pills.

I believe this represents a signal that my solutions were logical in terms of discovery, definition, direction etc - but were let down through the execution.

But as this was my first full product development cycle, I can forgive myself.

Helping users find better expert advice