Daily.dew: A UX Case Study
Brief: Design an app that manages shared living responsibilities so roommates can achieve a more cohesive cohabitation.
Problem: Roommates have a lot that they need to share and manage, like shared media libraries, cleaning responsibilities, grocery shopping, subscription services, and furniture. Our problem was to build an app that would address these issues.
Goals:
- Build an app that manages roommate responsibilities to ultimately achieve a better living experience.
- Motivate users to build habits and become longtime users of this app.
- Develop empathy for users; understand them, their pain points, and goals.
Design Process:
My Role:
I was on a team with three other designers. I headed up our research efforts, working as an interviewer, notetaker, and analyst. I also worked on wireframes, user tested, and led the high-fidelity design for our login and dashboard screens.
Empathize:
Assumptions
I began the research process by listing out some assumptions & anti-assumptions:
People live with roommates | People live alone
Roommates need an organized system to help them live cohesively | Roommates already have a system that helps them live together
Roommates will use an app to help them manage shared responsibilities | Roommates will not use an app
Survey
I then drafted and sent out a survey to help me narrow down my prompt and see what the user wants. I asked questions like:
Survey Findings
Interviews
I interviewed four people to build upon my research findings. My interviewees all lived with roommates, some living with partners, some with friends. The following are my research findings-
Interview Findings
- People live with roommates. I already knew this from my survey, but I found that our app resonated best with long-term roommates because they are most invested in their cohabitation.
- No one wants to nag or be nagged to clean. I found that a major pain point for my user was the friction that shared cleaning responsibilities caused. If our app could alleviate this tension it would be more useful for the user.
- Couples want to be recognized and recognize each other for the work they are doing. Of my three interviews, all three people said this was important to them.
- Partners have different schedules and different timeframes for cleaning. Both partners want their house to be clean, but they want it in different times. It wasn’t so much that the user needed their partner to clean at the same time, but that they wanted to ensure their partner would do their cleaning job.
- Partners have different ideas of what “clean” is.
Another thing I wanted to touch on in my interviews was why people aren’t using any roommate apps that are currently out there. Based on interviews I found it was the following reasons:
- Haven’t found one that works for them — not customizable enough.
- Not user friendly — doesn’t address their needs and isn’t an intuitive experience.
- The user wants an app that simplifies their process, not one that makes it more complicated.
Define
Persona
After compiling all the research findings I built my persona. My group and I decided to have our persona be two people, a married couple, who had the same goals, but different frustrations. We did this because in our interview findings we knew that long-term roommates were our target market.
I also worked to complete a user journey map. This helped to map out our app and recognize what our user is feeling at different points in their journey. I loved this exercise because it stretched me to think about both the business and the user’s needs.
Ideation & Visual Design
Wireframes
At this stage of wireframing and user testing I had to prioritize my different ideas. I did this by:
Focusing on my MVP — I knew I couldn’t finish everything I wanted to do, so I had to focus on what I could create that my user would use and build a habit from.
My group and I wanted to create a messaging board where the users could congratulate either other for their work. I knew that the user being recognized for their achievements was important because many people in our interviews said this, but I also knew that with the time my group had we didn’t have time to build out an entire messaging board. Following in line with our MVP, we made the messaging board more of a notification center where the user can see when their partner completes tasks, “like” that update, and send them standardized “Congratulations” messages.
Presenting in design reviews — One set of feedback I got really altered the design of my app.
When I started my wireframes I had an incredibly long onboarding process because I wanted the user to customize everything in the app. When presenting these screens in a design review I got the feedback that the onboarding process was too long. My users weren’t invested enough in the app to trust me. One of my mentors pointed out the fact that almost every home will have a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living room. I don’t have to have the user customize those things because they should be standard across most households. When I reiterated this design I updated it so all the settings were already in there and then the user could customize it from there.
Prototyping & User Testing
In the prototyping phase we used an online user testing site to check in on the process of adding or removing chores. We prototyped our app in inVision and then requested 15 online users to show us how they customize their chore chart. Of the 15 users 15 of them all did it successfully and with ease. This was very encouraging to us because we believed that was the most difficult task within the app.
Hi-Fidelity Design
Once we had all of this feedback it was time to upgrade the application to high-fidelity. My group came up with a design system and split up the screens.
I focused on the login page and the dashboard. I wanted the login process to be a straight-forward process where the user could easily create an account or login. The login screen is also the first screen the user will see when they download the app so I knew it had to look visually pleasing. To keep the process user-friendly I didn’t bombard the user with a lot of different options- they can either login or create an account. I also kept the design simple, clean, and straight-forward to accurately represent our brand.
The dashboard led to a greater challenge for me. I started out with the dashboard as more of a menu, but during a design review I got feedback that it was confusing because we also had a static bottom navigation. My instructors, mentors, and I discussed how it would be confusing for the user that there were two ways to do one thing. If they have the menu why would they need the dashboard too?
After this feedback I reiterated the dashboard again. Leaning on the fact that our users wanted to see their progress, I made different progress graphics to encourage them while they use the app. I made three different designs iterations and user tested with different people to see which they liked best.
Reflection
Further Thinking
A few things I would love to add if I reiterated this project again are the following:
Giving only an administrator access to edit.
With all roommates able to edit the chore chart that may cause more friction than I originally thought. It would be better if one user is able to control assigning chores so that roommates aren’t changing each other’s assigned chores.
Add a randomize option to how the chores are assigned.
This was one thing my group discussed a lot. We wanted to add a randomize option, but once we narrowed down our primary users to a married couple and we established our MVP we realized it couldn’t be one of our priorities.
This project really stretched my skills. My team was stacked with graphic designers so I stepped up to the plate to guide our research. I loved it! I loved having the users guide us through navigating a large, overwhelming prompt. Multiple times throughout the process I reflected on how much we had to do and how many directions we could take this project, but as I let the user guide me the project because much more digestible.
I also had to improve my visual design skills. When I started reiterating the dashboard my class was over and so I was on my own. This presented a challenge for me because I didn’t trust my visual design skills. But again, as I turned to the user I felt guided throughout the process to end with the best result. I feel a lot more confident in my ability to produce good visual design.
Props to my DevMountain mentors and instructors who helped guide me through this process. Also huge thanks to my group, especially Jessica Wright, who helped get this project finished on time!
