Shared Lists… Life Is Good Again!

What is it?

A new update has come! more features! a lot of stuff you can do in our app! The story never ends.

App developers keep on adding feature to their apps leaving one of the most important — if not the most important one — design requirement: simplicity. Any todo application now has a lot of features that are in the way of the users. Here is a small list of what you will find:

1. Reminders. Of course, you need to be reminded with a nagging auto-snooze to do something. Some day will forget our names depending on reminders!
2. Event creation. Start date, duration, location, number of alerts…etc. Hey! I just want to add an item to do any time later.
3. Types of reminders. Location reminders, call reminders, email reminders, etc. Can’t one just jump to add an item and that’s it?!

Shared Lists is on the other hand is really simple. Seriously, it’s just a checklist. May be a checklist for buy stuff from grocery story. May be a checklist for simple work items to finish in the next 2 hours. Or may be, a list to remove all other reminders/todo/calendar apps on the user’s mobile phone.

That was the “Lists” part. Shared Lists allows you to share checklists with friends and relatives. You can add your wife and children to a grocery list (this sounds funny a bit) and they can add whatever they want to get from the store. As you buy the stuff they want, you can check them on the list, and they will be informed immediately. No calls, no WhatsApp, no SMS.

How it evolved?

It started with Needfinding. I performed three user interviews asking participants questions about time management. To my surprise, many hate reminder apps, they just want a list of items to do and they prefer to check them regularly.

A participant writing down an item/task on a piece of paper, and putting it in her hand bag.

I went from there to creation of user stories. A user story is written in the form “As a <user>, I want to <function>, so that <benefit>”. I generated many although I know that most of them will drop down. I choose one or two for storyboarding. A storyboard is shown below.

A storyboard for showing how an app can streamline the shopping experience.

After the storyboard were tested and approved, I started creating paper prototypes. They don’t take time and let me iterate quickly on my design. Here is a sample of the prototype:

Paper prototype for Shared Lists.

The prototype was then evaluated using a technique called “Heuristic Evaluation”. Many of the issues found in the prototype were fixed by either removing useless features and enhancing others. A list of issues found is shown below.

Heuristic Evaluation of the paper prototype.

A pixel-perfect prototype was, then, designed. It was built for usability testing. I built the prototype on a tool called “InVision”. Here is a link to the final prototype: https://invis.io/TW84K7G2E#/177757553_1_-_Home_-. Here are some screenshots:

Adding lists and tasks/items.

Friends can add items too!

The next step was testing the app for usability — easy of use, look & feel, and functionality. I tested the app with 2 potential users. Testing allowed me to refine my design.

I performed an A/B testing to test a hypothesis that a small change in my design would beneficial to the user — and it was. The tests were run on UserTesting.com.

I am now on the process of finalizing app implementation. Once done, I will publish it on App Store. Hope you would enjoy it!