Better but simple is hard to do: Redesigning the Quibb iOS app

I’m guessing you read most of your industry news while at your desk (80% of Quibb members do). But there are probably other points throughout your day when you want to keep up with important news, times when you only have your phone nearby:

“I try to stay up-to-work on important news during the little breaks in my day”

“Commuting on Bart is the only time I have to read news”

“Reading something that helps my career is so much better than Candy Crush”

These were some of the comments from Quibb members that pushed me to rebuild the mobile app.

There was also the fact that the existing Quibb iOS app hadn’t been updated in 2.5y (yes years, you read that correctly). Yet even though it was so out of date, trapped in bubbly iOS 6.0-land, Quibb members still enjoyed using it. As I heard from members time and time again — a native mobile experience fit in their routine, so they put up with the less than desirable design.

The hardcore mobile users appreciated the content and the simplicity of the product. In building v2, this became the main battle: Keeping the product true to its simple roots and maintaining consistency with the existing web app, while making the content accessible and manageable on a small screen.

Research

So… what should v2 be? How should it be different? Had members’ needs changed over 2.5y? What changes had happened in mobile over those many months?

A couple obvious answers were related to the fact that the original v1 wasn’t even close to feature parity with the web app. To help understand which features were important to include vs. those which would not make it to the new v2, I worked with a couple of students from Tradecraft (thanks Cathrine, Ian, and mentor Kate!) to map out the entire web product. They did a great job tracking all of the features on the two platforms:

We learned that the web app had almost 3x the number of features as the v1 mobile app. Which ones belonged in the new mobile app?

Deciding which additional features to include in the v2 mobile app was based on which features were really needed but missing from the v1 (e.g. basic things like Follow/Unfollow a member), as well as those that were frequently used in the web app and fit the behaviors I anticipated to also be frequent in the mobile app (e.g. Tweet a link you’ve shared). I worked with Ian and Cathrine to develop some of these ideas.

Chris Liu, a long-time Quibb member, also spent some time exploring what a revamped Quibb iOS app could be. He (along with some great comments from Quibb members) helped me to think through what to focus on in the new version. I then hired a local SF design shop to further explore the design and nail down the interactions, ultimately completing the high-fidelity mockups. In the end, I decided to add just 5 more features to the v2 of the app.

In doing some research, I noted some interesting changes in behavior related to mobile device usage too. This became another piece of information that ultimately drove the redesign. The percentage of visits on mobile from 2y ago until 1y ago didn’t really change, both were a bit under 9%. However, over the past year mobile traffic to Quibb has more than doubled. In the past month, just over 18% of Quibb’s total traffic was on mobile. Clearly I needed to ensure a better experience for these increasingly mobile-focused members.

What’s new?

Here are some of the biggest changes and additions to this v2 that I’m most excited about:

• Accessing the three different feeds easily via a swipe. The main view is your own personalized feed, based on the people you follow in the network. You can swipe to view the Popular feed (pulled from across the network, displaying the most popular content from the previous 7d), and again to view the All feed (global feed of all links shared across the network).
• Sharesheet functionality — thank you Apple! Links on mobile are very tough, the design paradigm is broken. However, the new Sharesheet feature in iOS 8 makes it easy to directly share a link to the Quibb app while you’re reading and browsing in Safari:

• Twitter integration means you can directly share any links and comments in the app, both your own and those created by other members (with pre-filled Twitter attribution, of course).
• Fully detailed profiles allow you to see all of the links that other professionals like you are reading. I’ve also built out the profile details, so you can tap to get more information on each member (i.e. job history, bio, location, etc.):

Tough problems and managing feedback

As with all product redesigns, there were many tradeoffs and tough decisions related to the new design. Most of them stemmed from the fact that Quibb is a very text-heavy (almost text-only) product. Developing hierarchy in a feed with many different text-based elements was really challenging. I have trouble with some of these issues on the web, which were only exacerbated by the issues smaller mobile screens bring. The only solution was to move some of the features out of the feed, and insert them deeper into the app — and even there, many of the features that exist in the web app had to be trimmed.

I stuck with the original decision around the flow of tapping a link from the feed screen, even though this the feature that I get the most (negative) feedback on, by far. Currently, when you tap a link from any of the feeds, you’re taken to the ‘Conversation’ screen. Here, you can see any comments that other members have left, along with the note the initial person sharing the link added.

Based on the feedback I’ve received, ~50% of Quibb members don’t like this — they want to be taken directly to the content itself, and then have the option to view the Conversation screen if they choose (similar to how the HN flow works). I decided to keep the original flow as it’s important for Quibb to give full credit and acknowledgement to the person sharing the piece of content, giving them a chance to share their perspective on why they’re sharing a link before other people read it, or to give a quick breakdown of what the reader can expect. I also highly value comments, and want them to be visible whenever possible. On the web I’m able to accomplish this via the iframe, but on mobile a full screen is the only option. This decision is a reflection of how I see Quibb as a social product for sharing news, not a news aggregator.

What to expect next

I really wanted to get this out, so it’s not quite 100% there yet. There’s only Twitter login for now (if you’re a member who wants to try the new app but haven’t connected your Twitter yet, you can do that at the bottom of your Settings page), with Google sign-in coming soon. The current version is also lacking push notifications and deep-links to connect the links in the daily email to each of those links in the app itself.

If you’re not a Quibb member yet and want to try out the app, you can apply with Twitter to submit your application. Once your application is reviewed and you’re accepted, you’ll be able to login. In the meantime, the Popular feed of the best links from across the network is accessible to anyone who downloads the app.