Communications App
Challenge
To design a mobile app that provided free calls, video conferencing, texts and a fun social network for finding information based on locations, events, images, interests, reviews, and networking.
My Role
Research, branding, UX/UI design, and marketing of an iOS app, user flows, wireframes, design of an admin portal, website, the developer spec handoff/management, and final designs.
I began with competitive analysis, interviews, and persona development to understand the target market. I conceptualized ideas via task flows to develop the information architecture. Wireframing and prototyping came next, then evaluated the usability before the final design phase.
Discovery
Competitive Analysis: The competitors offered apps with certain features but would not have aspects of all features that we were offering. This new app would compete with Yelp, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat.
The current challenges with these apps involve the following:
Technical overload: logging information and maintaining multiple apps takes too much effort and time
Tedious app usage: there were communication patterns repeated with using many apps but there wasn’t one that offered all the major features into one
Communication challenges: there were barriers to contact retailers and other businesses. Also, payment methods and promotions were not unified for users
Based on this information, the need to create a streamlined communication app that offered texting, calling, a direct way to email preferred networks, learn and search for activity and events was necessary.
User Research
I conducted user research, surveys and interviews to develop more insights about the age, gender, educational and economic level of users.
Target Audience: 55% of males and 45% of females with a salary of $60K annually.
Previous Knowledge: 62% of males reported they really disliked multi-tasking and it was too distracting.
User context: The majority of users are in their 20s/30s/40s.
Technology: 60% of users prefer using a mobile app for social interaction to a web browser and also wanted to use something with a smooth onboarding process.
Problem to solve: 73% stated that the most difficult aspect was spending too much time between communication apps and not having a unified audience in one place.
