An Attempt to Improve the Retention and DAUs for DailyObjects App ||🔎Search Flow||
You scrolled down through Instagram and landed on Manish Malhotra's page, and one thought came to mind: “I wish I could have one personal fashion designer who designed affordable and unique dresses for me."
Ok, ok, come back from that thought. You will not get a second Manish Malhotra, but Daily Object is solving the related issue in terms of tech and lifestyle accessory design.
Read here what the Co-founder of DailyObjects says
I explored more about the Daily Object app during my 48-hour hackathon, and we will explore more in detail one by one.
Hello🖐 readers,
I recently participated in a 48-hour design hackathon (Designathon) organized by UX Anudeep and UXM Community
When the designathon was about to start, our team members gathered in a Discord VC to choose the top three priority apps we wanted to fight for with the other teams. Our priority was Meesho, the second was Cult Fit, and the third was Daily Objects.
We debated about our unfair advantage in selecting the Meesho App (out of three priorities) with other teams.
1. We had 2 people in the team from a Fashion industry background.
2. We know someone in the Meesho company that can help us in knowing the background story of Meesho.
3. We had actual users who were using the Meesho app that can help us during Primary research.
But the opposite team had some strong unfair-advantage
They had a community where product designers and product managers are currently working in the industry related to the next billion users, where language localization has a significant impact, where tier 2 and tier 3 audiences account for 80% of Meesho App usage, and adding the Hindi language increases Meesho adoption by 20%.
Therefore, we decided to work on the DailyObjects app.
We chose the Daily Objects app primarily for three reasons:
- Our team members had never heard about this app so we all came up with a fresh perspective to solve the current issue without any biases.
- It was an opportunity for us to explore a new e-commerce app.
- We loved the idea of DailyObjects which is trying to bridge the gap between premium and affordance design. Being design enthusiasts, we can resonate with their stories well.
Meet my Team UX Avengers
In addition to writing the documentation, I was in charge of conducting secondary research, coming up with UI design concepts, and making the final UI.
The reasons behind our UX Avengers name are:
- As a team, we wanted to remain active for 48 hours, fighting all the distractions (just like superheroes).
- Marvel Avengers did everything they could to save the world. We UX- Avengers can do anything to improve the business metrics of the app.
Making your work easy. Just click on any of the headlines to know in detail about it.
1. Understanding the Problem statement
2. We can’t move forward without understanding the current Search flow.
3. Final Flow that we have redesigned
4. Let’s, deep dive, into the detailed case study
5. Have a look at our Problem Identification Process
6. Moments that compelled us to do Secondary Research
7. Moments that compelled us to do Primary Research
8. How did we find users for the usability testing for the current flow of the DailyObject App?
9. How did we target our users?
10. Questions we asked from the users for the usability testing
12. Validation of our hypothesis
13. “How might we” questions to push our brains for more ideas
14. Transferring ideas generated from HMW questions to pen and paper to move from ambiguity to clarity.
15. Re-designed UI (before final usability testing)
16. Checking our redesigned screens with users
17. Final insights from the user
18. Making a sense of all the insights we got
20. Final UI (after final usability testing)
21. My learnings from the project
22. Scope for future improvements
23. Appendix
23. Contact me- Megha Dokekar🍁
Understanding the Problem Statement
For our designathon project, we chose an evaluative problem statement to work on.
The evaluative problem statement means to make the existing flow better.
👉Why did we choose this problem statement?
We chose this problem statement because we knew how search flow would impact the business's revenue. How fast users complete their desired action determines the growth of a company. As a team, we wanted to improve the search flow of the emerging e-commerce app so that it would impact retention and DAUs for the DailyObjects App.
👉About DailyObjects:
DailyObjects is India’s first premium D2C lifestyle and tech accessories business. In a world where everyone owns incredibly similar or identical products, DailyObjects strives to give its customers a means of personal expression by offering them items that enable them to make a unique statement about who they are.
Their product range includes mobile covers, mobile accessories, laptop peripherals, home office gear, watch bands, bags, and wallets, all while taking care of aesthetics and ease of use.
👉Understanding their Users
DailyObjects's target users are young people and new-age professionals (ages 25–34) who want unique design accessories.
👉Understanding what needs to be solved
- So, we need to improvise on the Search flow of the app, understanding points where the user feels confused, frustrated, tired or otherwise and leaves the app while searching for products.
- We need to revise an existing flow after understanding the loopholes in the current design. This can be done after conducting the primary and secondary research.
👉What would be the outcome of solving this problem statement?
- Upon solving this problem, the user can finish the desired action quickly.
- A steady and more understandable flow for customers to make purchases.
👉Understanding what part of the business needs to be impacted
- A good experience while searching will ensure that the user completes the purchase without leaving the app and help in retaining the customer.
- Some kind of gamification in the current flow will bring more Daily Active Users (Unique visitors interacting with an online product on a given day).
We can’t move forward without understanding the current Search flow
Let’s have a look at a video to get an understanding of the current flow👇
The current flow consists of the following screens
Home Screen
Observation
It’s the first page whenever the user opens the DailyObject app. On the home screen, we noticed two things
1. They are showing discount offers in the ongoing sale to the users.
2. They are emphasising their 08:01 collection so that users can explore that collection and ultimately purchase some of them.
Problems identified
1. People may not understand what products the app sells when they come to the home page.
2. The home button is not looking like a home button
Search Screen
Observation
Users use the search bar option to search for any product. DailyObjects search screen is plain.
Problems identified
1. Users are not able to recall what they searched for previously
2. Popular items are not there
“Type keyword” Screen
Observation
Users can search for any product using keywords they type in the search bar.
DailyObjects provides product recommendations based on the letters that users were typing.
There is a cross icon to erase the user’s search keyword and there is an option of “done”.
Problems identified
The user is not able to go to the previous screen
Search results Screen
Observation
They were showing the product based on search keywords. If the product was not available per the keywords, they showed some different products.
For each product, they are showing the product's detailed title, detailed rate and discounted rate.
There is a filter icon to help users in finding products fast.
Problems identified
1. Users are not able to add products to the Wishlist directly from search results.
2. Users are not able to go to the previous screen.
3. Users don't have enough information to decide their choice.
Filter Screen
Observation
They have categorised the filter option into 4 categories i.e types, collection, STU-DO and colours.
Users have to scroll a lot to find a filter per their product choice.
Problems identified
1. Users might not be able to understand Reset as a button they might take it as a hyperlink
2. The options in the filter are not the same when a user comes to this page from the home screen & search bar.
3. Users are not able to sort the results by price.
4. Users cannot select all filters at one time.
“Applied filter” Screen
Observation
Users can choose any filter, and a new product page with an applied filter will open.
Problems identified
1. The filter button in the center can be distracting/disturbing for the user.
“Product details” Screen
Observation
For each product, they show the product's detailed title, original rate and discounted rate.
Problems identified
1. The offer is not conveyable to the user.
2. Users are not able to understand which page they are in.
Final Flow that we have redesigned
You have read previously about the problems that we identified. Now I want to give a walkthrough of the redesigned screens that we made after usability testing.
Watch the video here 👇
Let's take a look at the comparison between our redesigned screens (the final ones) and the original screens.
- HOME PAGE
2. SEARCH
3. TYPE THE KEYWORD
4. SEARCH RESULT
5. Filters
6. Filter Applied with a Product details screen
Let’s, deep dive, into the detailed case study
Once we understood that we had to increase the retention and daily active users for the DailyObjects app, we talked with each other about "how we can do it."
We can think of two ways:
- Understand the problem in the flow using our design skills that include (Problem identification based on intuition or heuristic evaluation, hypothesis, and Research) and redesigning the existing flow.
- Understand the problem in the current flow by ourselves but get it validated by research and the users who are actually using this app.
We go ahead with the second (2) option because we think that while understanding the problem statement, we might come up with problems based on our own personal biases, and it would be a risk to the company if we went ahead with building a solution without talking with the actual users.
What risk might it pose?
We would have built a solution with our intuition, but there was a high possibility that our solution was not actually needed by the user.
Since developing a product involves lots of time and money (In our case it’s time), we didn’t want to build a useless product and waste lots of time in making a solution that is not actually needed by the user.
To avoid this, we planned to write down our hypothesis based on the problem we identified and have it validated by our users and research.
Have a look at our Problem Identification Process
Heuristic Evaluation
Our Hypothesis based on the identified Problem
As I previously stated, simply identifying problems on our own was insufficient.
📌Moments that compelled us to do Secondary Research
As we searched for any product in the DailyObject App, we looked at the flow to determine how many steps would be required to get to the intended result.
But we got stuck in our thoughts when we saw the first screen of the search flow. It was a totally blank page with merely a search icon. Our brains have become so used to seeing recommended products or something that will help us search for products in a more efficient way.
In order to validate our assumptions, we wanted to examine various direct and indirect competitor apps to see how they optimized their search flows for their users.
We started working on competitor analysis to get an idea of what they are doing differently from our app and how it’s going to help in gaining retention and DAU. What’s positive about the app and how are they providing a good user experience?
We begin by analyzing Bewakoof because it is the direct competitor of the DailyObjects app. We went ahead with analyzing the search and filter flows along with the home page. They are efficiently utilizing “recognition rather than recall” heuristic principles because they are providing the recent search option, which is missing from the Daily Objects App. Bewakoof also provides the user with the option to see what popular searches are in this app, which we do not have in DailyObjects. To get a better idea of how different e-commerce apps are optimizing their search flows, we went ahead with Amazon and Flipkart.
Insights from Desk Research
📌Moments that compelled us to do Primary Research
DailyObject app was new to our team. We hadn’t heard about it before, so exploring it was a new experience for us. Through the app, we were trying to figure out what this app was about. When we opened the app, we landed on the home page, where there was a big banner with an apparel picture. At first glance, we thought it would be a clothing app, but after scrolling down a few more, we found some of their product categories, from which we can explore more.
Due to this experience, we understood the issue that they were not conveying about their niche segment at first glance. Users might have spent more time on the app to figure out its offerings and products.
But this was just our assumption because we hadn't looked at how the user used the app.
We weren’t sure if the user would really feel confused about the app's offerings or if they would successfully navigate through the app with a clear understanding of what it offered.
To clear up our doubts, we went ahead and did primary research on the current flow.
How did we find users for the usability testing for the current flow of the DailyObject App?
We need five users for the testing because after 5 users’ answers start repeating and we don’t get unique answers.
With the limited time of 48 hours, we had. We tried to find users from a common friend and set a rule that the interviewer should not be known to the user to avoid biases in questions and answers.
We found some people from the UXM community and some from the common friend.
About Users
How did we target our users?
Questions we asked from the users for the usability testing
Interview Insights
Validation of our hypothesis
We validated our hypothesis using both primary and secondary research. We did a vote with the team members to get everyone's perspective on what hypothesis they thought would impact the business most. We move forward with the most voted hypothesis.
With the help of primary and secondary research, we were able to validate our assumptions. After that, we had enough clarity to start generating ideas for the revised flow.
How might we (HMW) questions helped us to push our brain thinking capability even further
Transferring ideas generated from HMW questions to pen and paper to move from ambiguity to clarity.
Re-designed UI (before final usability testing)
We knew that the top portion is usually for product categories, but we still went with the reel feature to test with users if they would understand it or not. We were assuming that the reel feature would increase DAUs.
Checking our redesigned screens with users
In order to determine if users understand our new solution, we conducted usability testing after making the final prototype.
Since we had limited time for user testing, we decided to give some context to the users about the screens to test it with them to see if they are understanding it or not.
Task given to users
👉Open the app
👉What do you understand when you see the home page of the app?
👉Can you look for a phone case of your choice?
👉Can you filter your preferred colour case?
👉Can you select a case of your choice?
👉Can you select a brown printed phone case for Samsung A50.
👉Can you look for a leather black sleeve for a Mac?
👉Can you again look for a phone case of your choice?
While they were performing tasks, we observed the following points:
👉How easy/difficult is it for them to navigate?
👉How do they feel when they get the results?
👉How do they feel while applying filters?
👉Where exactly are the users getting stuck?
👉Observe thumb gestures while navigating.
👉Observe whether the user is able to go back between 6 and 7?
👉How much time does it take to complete a specific task?
👉Steps taken to complete a task.
Questions we asked to get deeper behavioral insights
👉How often do you shop online?
👉Have you ever felt the need to buy accessories for the gadgets that you are using? If yes, what sites do you prefer?
👉What factors do you keep in mind before selecting a product?
👉Why did you go to the cart page for recent searches?
👉Why do you think this is an apparel app?
👉Why did you not search from the search bar and use the home page and hamburger menu?
👉Why are you stuck on the product detail page?
Final insights from the user
User 1
User 2
User 3
Making a sense of all the insights we got
Re-Iterations on Ideas
Once we gather insights from users. We went ahead with brainstorming Ideas by making low fidelity prototype and discussed with each other, how can we solve the issues that our users faced during Usability Testing.
📌We divided into two groups. One group was brainstorming ideas for the home screen and the other group was brainstorming ideas for the search screen. I was in the first group, and we started discussing the problems that our users faced on the home screen.
Final UI (after final usability testing)
Here’s the screenshots of Before and after UI
📌1.1 One of the major insights that we got was that the user was getting confused with the “Influencer Reviews” section that we put in the topmost portion of the home screen. When the user clicked on the highlighted ellipsis, they expected it to be the categories section but not the review video. When we asked why, he said, when he surfs different e-commerce apps, generally the top portion is for categories.
📌1.2 When we were discussing this, we analyzed different e-commerce apps and came to the conclusion that we should follow the consistency and standards set by other competitors to avoid any future confusion. So, we converted the review video section to the categories.
📌1.3 We provided a rectangle-shaped reels section (taking inspiration from Instagram) where users can watch the 10s video when they have a glimpse over it, and if they seem interested, they can click on it to watch the detailed review given by famous influencers.
📌2.1 We also added a “check similar design” section in the reels where users can check similar designs related to the product that they are watching currently. It allows users to keep getting engaged and finally helps them make their decision quickly.
📌3.1 During usability testing, when we asked our user to search for a product using his gallery, our user got stuck because he was not able to find any option for a gallery search. We had given an option for that in a search bar, but the user didn’t know what that icon meant. To avoid confusion, we’ve added a button to the page that says you can search for your product using the gallery.
📌4.1 We changed the icon for the filters by using the consistency and standards icons from other apps.
📌4.2 We changed the product description format, keeping all the essential information upfront and removing all the unnecessary details.
My learnings from the project
- Teamwork: It’s our first opportunity to participate in the designathon. We learned to work in collaboration. We now know how to delegate our tasks to finish the project in the given time.
- Remove the Perfectionist mentality: There were certain instances where we got lost in the detailing and making our product better but the constant reminder from the volunteer helped us in finishing the task in time. The barrier of time helped us in removing the perfectionist mentality.
Scope for future improvements
If given more time I would work on
- A more optimized filter option on the basis of insights from usability testing.
- I want to work on the Wishlist.
- I want to work on the sorting feature.
Appendix
Thank you for experiencing this design thinking process until the end with me. Please give your valuable feedback or suggestions that can help me in my next project.
Don’t forget to give 👏, Btw each reader can give up to 50 claps, just saying 😀
Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or you can email me at megha.dokekar@gmail.com
