InByte is an events-focused app where users can contribute content to event-centred albums. Through their media submissions, users become content creators who can impact and influence how events are experienced by others around the world.
As we conducted beta testing prior to the full release in 2020, we received user feedback and identified several pain points that hindered the user experience. I took charge of analyzing this feedback to try and address the usability issues reported, craft solutions and improve the app experience prior to full launch.
I took an iterative approach in order to break down the reported problems to resolve the users’ needs, improve functionality and the user experience on inbyte.
In order to gain insight into the users’ frustrations and pain points shared from the beta testing phase, research was conducted in order to understand where to focus our attention and how approach the process of crafting solutions.
Interviews
I gathered a group of 15 test users and provided them with 3 specific tasks to complete while using inbyte. They were then instructed to provide feedback on the pain points encountered:
1. Create 2 events for your favourite sports teams where users can contribute media to them.
2. Create an event where your friends can collaborate their media from a trip/party to it.
3. Create and privatize an event where only those invited can access and contribute to it.
From the interviews, 3 common pain points were identified:
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1)Public, 2)Friends, 3)Private
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With the research results and pain points defined, I created a comparisson chart to explore how inbyte stacked up against to the most popular social media platforms.
My focus was on which unique featueres inbyte should provide, which features overlapped with the competition, and which features were missing on their end to know where to focus our solutions.
The following findings represent the main areas to focus on creafting solutions for:
After comparing features through the competitive analysis, and the defined pain points, I created a prioritization chart to identify and organize the needs, goals, and features to focus on before begining ideating solutions.
The competitive analysis and prioritization chart provided me with great feedback on which features to implement into inbyte. I decided to spend some time brainstorming how these features should be organized to solve the users’ needs.
I crafted the following How Might We statements to guide me through the ideation process.
How might we organize events and their information for a cleaner feed page experience?
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Segmented Feed through Event Types
As different types of events are created, introducing a navigation bar to separate them improves the user experience and where different types of events appear.
How might we alleviate some pain points around privatizing events users currently face?
Creating Different Event Types & Privatization
Event admins create different types of events, which allow different connections to experience them. Public (visible to all), Friends (only those added as friends can access), Private (invitation only access).
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How might we provide event admins with control of the content and media submissions without compromising event experience?
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Admin Media Controls
Event admin controls for the quality of media submitted, and the number of submissions. They can approve/reject media, and pause or enable contributions.
My next step was creating an updated version of the task flow to shocase the following 2 tasks:
Task 1: Create public event, publish it and upload media to it.
Task 2: Create private event, send private invites to users, publish event and add media to it.
Completing the ideation phase allowed me to transform my sketches into digital designs for user testing. This provided a chance to get real-time feedback from the test users to see if my holistic approach successfully solved the pain points received.
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After extensive research, ideating and redesigning, the solutions were ready for the user testing on inbyte. Th following interactive prototypes present the solutions created to solve the following pain points identified throughput the research phrase of the project.
Creating events is one of inbyte’s major components. This prototype shows this process from creation through to publishing – including adding a cover image, extra media, captions, and viewing the published event album.
Navigating event feeds has been improved by categorizing events at the creation stage. Events are now populated within their specified feed, this cleaned up the event feed and improved the user experience
Users select an event to submit media to, select the media to contribute, add a caption for context, and submit for review by the event admin.
If its approved, it populates within the event album
Reviewing media submissions has been organized per event.
Admins go through the media submitted notification button, select an event with pending media, and can then approve or dismiss media to be added to the event albums, as well as deciding on whether the context added is needed or if it can me ignored.
The user feedback received during our Beta testing phase identified some important pain points that left users frustrated with the funcionality and user experience on inbyte. The results from our research allowed us to prioritize the areas to focus on and craft the right solutions.
While several features were under consideredation for a future release, the pain points shared by users highlighted the immediate need to implement them and have them built in time for the pending full release of inbyte in Summer of 2022.
Taking the time to follow a process will help iron out issues early on. Do not get too attached to any aspect of the project and always stay open-minded on how to improve the user experience for the user.
