SOMETHING ROTTEN
Timeline — 2 weeks
My Team — Ebenezer Gavieres, Guy Succes, Krista Feierabend
Platform — Responsive Website
My Role — Lead UI Designer,
UX Designer, User Researcher,
Information Architect, Interaction Designer
Toolkit — Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Forms, Omnigraffle, Adobe Illustrator, Invision, Sketch 3, pencil/paper, Trello
OBJECTIVE
Explore a problem/area of opportunity for an existing brand. Choose the problem and the brand. Explore and work with technical constraints.
The company we chose to explore with an area of opportunity was Rotten Tomatoes.
COMPANY BACKGROUND
Rotten Tomatoes is known as a film review and news aggregator and is seen as a trustworthy website when it comes to film reviews.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
We see an opportunity for Rotten Tomatoes to provide users the information for what they need to find out to determine the best app for their topic of interest. (e.g. best food app, best movie app)
OPPORTUNITY
We see an opportunity for Rotten Tomatoes to user their current business plan and expand it to include a new division to provide users with information and reviews on apps.
People want to easily find the best apps based on their topic of interest. Rotten Tomatoes can simplify the process of evaluating whether an app matches the users needs by providing them with the necessary information they need to determine the best app such as quick synopsis/summary of the review, a rating system and user reviews.
Meet Rotten APPles
PROBLEM VALIDATION
• Users typically find the best apps through recommendation by word of mouth
• Users downloaded multiple apps in order to determine which is best
• User do not trust most of the reviews and usually just skim them
• Not all users rely on the stars/rating and have to test the apps to evaluate
whether it fits their needs and expectations
PLATFORM SELECTION AND JUSTIFICATION
We propose a responsive website design based on user research which indicates that our users are always on-the-go. They search for apps with their mobile device when they’re out with friends or getting lunch. In addition, users didn’t want to download a new app to review apps.
TECHNICAL BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH
Possibilities: Navigating the responsive website, rating an app and leaving a review.
Constraints: Must be logged in to see what’s popular with friends and their reviews. Cannot download another device’s app (e.g. Android app onto iPhone)
API: Facebook, Twitter and respective app store (iOS, Android & Windows) API’s will be needed to pull information from to make use of functionality and data.
BUSINESS RESEARCH
As part of our business research, we took a look at how one might look up a review through Rotten Tomatoes and it’s competitors who offer similar services by doing competitive/comparative analysis of user flows.
The “Task” was to look up a review.
USER RESEARCH
USER INTERVIEWS
We began with a screener surgery, then quickly realized from the responses that everyone reads reviews so we didn’t need to continue with the results of that and went straight into user interviews. We conduscted 12 interviews. We found that people downloaded multiple apps to test in order to determine which is best for them. Most users were on-the-go while some prefer to read app reviews on their desktop when at home or work. They typically found apps through recommendation and skimmed, and sometimes ignored the app reviews.
We asked a series of 10 questions:
- What was the last app you’ve downloaded?
- How do you decide what apps to download? [Why?]
- What do you consider most important about _____?
- Where do you find your information? [Is there a particular source?]
- Could you describe some pain points associated with _____?
- Could you tell me about some things you enjoy about _____?
- What apps have you downloaded?
- How many [reviews] do you go through for a given app?
- Have you ever written your own review?
- What would you expect to see when creating your own review?
From the interview we were able to determine key takeaways and trends.
- 7 out of 12 people found apps through word of mouth
- 5 out of 6 people uses the app store to download apps
- 5 out of 6 people rely on screenshots to gauge the app’s credibility
- 10 out of 12 people like the star rating
- 7 out of 12 people will write a review if the process is easy enough
FEATURE INSPIRATION
Below are a few brands that we took inspiration from based on our competitive analysis.
METACRITIC
- Top Left/Right: User Score Slider Bar — Available on website only, not on responsive site
- Bottom Left: Social Media (Facebook) & Email quick login to write a review.
CNET
We took inspiration from the star rating, from our user interviews we gained information that they skimmed reviews so the quick pros/cons list and the bottom line was a great addition. The user ration number in addition to the stars was helpful to really get an idea of the review.
PERSONA CREATION
Based off our research we developed two personas. First we have “Steve, the Seeker,” He activly looks for apps and will purchase apps, and/or make in-app purchases. His main goal is to find and download an app to improve his lifestyle.
Steve’s scenario: Steve just saw The Martian and wants to download the best movie app so he can write his own review. We approached his scenario through our design by providing recommended apps and the quick summary based on the app he was searching for.
Second we have “Samantha, the Non-Seeker.” Her goals were to download the latest apps based on her friends recommendations.
Samantha’s scenario: Samantha wants to download the best app based on her friend’s recommendations. We approached her scenario through our design by showing her what apps are popular with her friends when she’s logged in to the site.
DESIGN STUDIO
We ran a design studio to get our creative juices flowing. We each came up with some sketches, gave each other feedback and then continued to iterate and combine ideas until we came up with our first set of wireframes.
We began usability testing on the paper prototypes in the picture on the right. On the “Landing Page” what we found out was users weren’t sure what was going on when it showed apps that were popular with their friends. We combined the meter rating from Meteoritic and Rotten Apples Rating system and it was pretty much completely confusing to everyone. Since we didn’t include a rating percentage, users weren’t able to figure out the exact rating from friends/other users or what the icons represented.
For the Review page, we crammed too much infomation into a small space we didn’t utilize the vertrical scroll until the second iteration. Screenshots were overlooked as users missed that you could enlarge and scroll through them. Some users understood that the arrows were a voting system, but were confused as to actually how to place a vote, in addition they didn’t really care to vote on the reviews, but actually the app itself, some didn’t know what it was completely. The meter rating bar was a waste of space, participants didn’t understand what it was or represented.
MOBILE VERSION
DESKTOP VERSION
PROTOTYPE
SITE MAP
We then created a site map. This is a list of webpages a user can access through the homepage. API’s for Facebook, Twitter and appropriate app stores are needed in order to make use of functionality and data.
SWIM LANES
Next, based on our conversation with a developer, we created this swim lane chart which shows a users interaction with the interface and the system. We are able to see when infomation needs to be uploaded and/or downloaded from the server through each step in the process.
NEXT STEPS
In conclusion, some areas we would like to explore in the future:
- Usability test the second iteration
- Compare and analyze the second usability test results with prior usability test results
- Test the desktop iteration
- Explore other possible error states for both mobile and wireframe
- Do a better job of filtering content by platform
- Conduct more testing and analyze results to improve experience for users
