Defining UX Opportunities Through Iterative Testing

An overlooked usability issue; and how I convinced my team to come together to solve it.

The Problem

Members are confused about how to perform basic actions on our app’s digital wallet.

We identified this problem through support tickets and usability tests.

The original flow rebuilt as a Figma prototype

Goal-Setting

Our goal was to enhance the usability of our digital wallet.

This helps GlobaliD in three major ways:

1. Boosts member engagement
2. Decreases # of customer support tickets
3. Makes us money! Each wallet transaction generates business revenue

Goals should be measurable. On projects at later-stage companies, I’d set a KPI. Here, that would be “# of wallet actions taken/member/week.”

But, UX research is seldom a clean process. This project took place before GlobaliD’s wider launch so we wouldn’t have been able to measure statistically significant results.

Instead, we measured success based on usability studies and support requests. I used my weekly syncs with the support team to monitor member sentiment.

Audience

Defining the audience semed easy, as I had already created a persona for our target members: “Crypto Charles.” This persona was based on ethnographic community research, 5 interviews, and support ticket analysis.

The “Crypto Charles” persona used for many of my projects

But, our core audience of crypto enthusiasts were happy to read an instruction manual before utilizing a wallet. Designing with only this audience in mind precludes accessibility.

So instead, I chose to focus research on a wide general audience.

Role

As GlobaliD’s UX Researcher, my role was to support the Product Designers I partnered with. On a deeper level, I leveraged insights to spread customer empathy across the company.

Process

First, we needed to further define the opportunity for improvement. I accomplished this by:

1. Conducting user interviews
2. Analyzing customer support tickets
3. Interviewing internal stakeholders (PMs, CEO)
4. Running iterative usability tests (with a Figma prototype)
5. Performing competitive research

We needed to understand the problem in order to best address it. Through these processes we learned that the current design was inaccessible and suffered from poor discoverability.

This iteration brought increased emphasis to the action button, but failed to make its function apparent

Testers mentioned that “the use of the ‘+’ symbol to access the main menu [was] unclear,” and 7/9 testers failed to perform a basic wallet action on their first try.

Wise and Coinbase’s digital wallets had a lot to teach us: each utilizes clearly labeled top-level actions to increase discoverability

Pushback

When my studies showed that our internally-popular action button was behind member’s woes, I faced a lot of pushback. After the first wave of studies, the button’s Designer did not want to implement any changes.

So, I tried again with more inclusive tactics. I involved the Designer early on, and had him help me build a new version of the prototype we’d use for testing. In documentation, my voice took a backseat to direct tester quotes. I asked the Designer and other members of the team to join my live usability testing sessions and help me take notes. Then, I produced a video with testing highlights and hosted a Friday “popcorn session” where I watched videos with my team.

Each of these helped me to convince my design teammates of the value presented by this opportunity. They also helped me to spread a love of member-centered processes to teammates, making a larger impact than I could as a lone researcher.

Results

Usability testing was a rollercoaster of iterations. After identifying issues, we’d make changes to the prototype then test again.

One iteration brought labels to the action button. Still, it wasn’t an obvious signifier for the menu inside.

Non-obvious signifiers led to more confusion for testers

Another failed iteration: tooltip tutorials did not solve the problem

After 6 rounds of testing we found a solution that felt immediately familiar to our testers.

After working with developers on implementation, we deployed the solution and were able to successfully reduce the number of related customer support tickets. Stakeholders and members alike were happy, and our digital wallet is easier to use than ever.

Preliminary sketches are a great tool for communicating with teammates and stakeholders

Our final iteration tested well; directly addressing the discovered issues by bringing labelled actions to the top-level

Ultimately, I learned how to leverage research and rapport to make a large impact on product strategy. By involving both teammates and app members in the design process, I was able to have a positive impact on our app and on team culture as a whole.