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Re-design Mobile App

The aim was to discover pain points of the current app and propose solutions to improve user experience.

Project Overview
The product

Westside, one of the India’s largest and fastest growing chains of retail stores. It was established in 1998 as a part of the Tata Group. 

Project duration
Target audeince
Role
Responsibilities
4 weeks
Users who are frequent with Westside app
UX researcher and designer
User research, wireframing, prototyping & iterating
The challenge

The challenge is to understand Westside user’s response to the current mobile app, discover pain points and propose a solution to improve their experience.

The process

The initial user research, I conducted guerrilla usability testing to understand the current problems. During the synthesize phase, I used affinity mapping to analyze pain points and determine priorities. Then I generated task flows to understand where in the process users having troubles, created Lo-Fi sketches and Hi-Fi clickable prototypes. At the end, I was able to validate with users and confirm the pain points are solved by the redesign. The project timeline is two weeks. Now let’s go deeper into each step.

Research
Synthesize
Ideate
Prototype
Validate
RESEARCH
Guerrilla Usability Testing 

I first did research to understand the business goal, revenue model, and target audience of Westside. During the testing phase, I spoke with 7 users to uncover pain points while using the mobile app. The selected users are reasonably close to the target market of Westside based on statistics from this report. 5 out of the 7 users are working between 22 - 28 (3 of them are new to the working class). 4 out of the 7 users have not used Westside in the past. I gave each user three different tasks to complete within the app:

1. Imagine you just got a job in a big firm, and want to re-vamp your wardrobe/clothes for yourself. A friend told you about the brand Westside that also has a mobile app. Could you show me what you would do?

2. You are not a big fan of the scrolling through 1000s of products and prefer using filters and sort feature. You want to buy a specific brand, size, color, pattern and price range and wishlist them before adding to cart. What would you do?

3. You’ve finalized and bought your items. After confirmation you realize you’ve made a mistake while adding your address. What would you do to fix it?

4. Now that you’ve bought clothes for your liking, there are some items that don’t meet your expectations and want to return them. What would you do?

SYNTHESIZE
Affinity Map

I synthesized my findings based on the main business functions of Westside - browse and shop products. The findings from my research were then organized on an affinity map to better understand their relationship to each other and to determine priorities moving forward in the process. With the short timeline for this project it was important for me to understand what I should focus on that would lead to maximum benefit to the app.

Based on the study, here are the 7 problems I decided to focus on:
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  • Difficult to find specific “filters” according to user’s preferences.

  • Difficult to find the wishlist.

  • Challenged to scan the barcode from the gallery.

  • Challenged to get updates on out-of-stock items.

  • Difficult to edit address or any other personal details.

  • Couldn’t chat with the customer care agent.

  • Notifications do not work for order and general updates and lack expanation.

Persona

To help communicate information about users that I collected during research, I created a provisional persona.

IDEATE
Task Flow

I created task flows for steps a user typically goes through in order to complete two common tasks in Westside app:

  1. User wants to purchase a product

  2. User wants to return a product

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To better understand where in the process users were having trouble, I highlighted the areas in purple where most users struggled, where I want to focus most during the redesign.

PROTOTYPE
High-Fi Prototype

Moving forward with the process, I turned my Lo-Fi sketches into Hi-Fi prototypes. Below are the screen comparison showing before and after side by side.

1. The top navigation bar was confusing. In the concept design, I added hamburger menu to the left side, wishlist and notification icons to the right side for easy access.

Current
Concept

2. The navigation bar icons are overly detailed and confusing from afar for a user. In the concept design, I used an icon pack - Iconsax icons for clarity.

Current
Concept

3. The concept I created, improved the ‘my profile’ page by utilizing space for points. I also incorporated the Manage Notifications, Payment Information for easy access to user’s payment details.

Current
Concept

4. The current UI’s struggles with explaining notification features. In my concept UI, I optimized text hierarchy, button placement and explanation of what is the feature’s purpose.

Current
Concept

5. The current vision lacks a clear “general and security information” of a user. I’ve improved and separated, general and security for more precise user’ information.

Current
Concept

6. The current version lacked “Chat with an agent” option for users who wanted to opt for text instead of a call with customer care. In my redesigned interface, I implemented “Chat with us” button top right for easy access and visibility for users.

Current
Concept

7. The concept I created, improved the search page. I added voice recognition feature for accessibility and option to add the photo of barcode from gallery.

Current
Concept
Current
Concept

8. The current interface lacked to notify customers on the out of stock items. The concept I created had an option to get notified of out of stock items through emails.oeo

Current
Concept
Current
Concept

9. The current interface lacked search option for filters and limited options. After the re-design, I added search bar and more filters considering the categories.

Current
Concept
Clickable Prototype
VALIDATE
Conclusion

After two weeks of user research, analysis and redesign, I was able to validate the assumptions and changes I had made. I did this by testing my clickable prototype with seven new users. The results are:

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  1. Searching for Wishlist: 7 out of 7 users found it on the home screen in 5 seconds.

  2. Shopping: 7 out of 7 users were able to get notifications of a out of stock products.

  3. Looking for Products: 6 out of 7 users were able to find the camera icon quickly and able to add a barcode from the gallery.

  4. Selecting Products: 7 out of 7 users were able to sort/filter and select easily.

  5. Searching for Customer Care: 6 out of 7 users clicked "Chat with us" and found it helpful.

  6. Notification: 7 out of 7 users were able to edit notifications according to their preferences.

After Thoughts

This UX case study has been a challenging and rewarding experience for me. At the beginning, I was overwhelmed by the idea of getting out into the "wild" and talking to strangers for the usability testings. However, it turned out to be an amazing experience to understand users and find out what makes the tick.
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Although I had a very short timeline for this project, I am glad to learn that even by making small changes, we are able to yield big impacts and create a great experience for users. It is so important to always validate our assumptions through testing.
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Note: I do not work for, nor am I affiliated with Westside. This UX study was done as a learning experience for me to explore products I love and how to make it even better.

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