UX Research
UX UI Concept Design
Services
Client
Years active
2022-today
&Charge
&Charge is a mobile app for e-mobility enthusiasts, who co-create the EV-infrastructure of tomorrow, while getting rewarded for their contributions.
&Charge
UX redesign of existing products challenges the designer on many levels since there are typically more aspects to be considered, and much more specifics involved:
-
Users have already learned using the app, so there are existing mental models and expectations regarding information architecture, features, app flow and functionality, as well as brand identity and semiotics.
-
And stakeholders already have their own assumptions about users, use cases, and being strongly biased by business objectives, they typically want to set the agenda for the design process.
The initial goal of the project was to improve the old user onboarding concept for the existing &Charge mobile app.
So, at first I was assigned to redesign the existing user onboarding. However, upon interviewing the stakeholders and analysing the existing design, I was able to define further improvement potential that affected the app experience.
This significantly changed the collab from a single project to a long-term contribution, where my role was to audit UX & UI issues in their complexity and re-think the initial app flow, IA and navigation to enable a more intuitive interaction with the app and improve user experience.
The Challenge
My Role
Featured Projects
Discover
My Design Process
Stakeholder Interview
Usability Analysis
Hypothesis
Research Objectives
Primary Research
Evaluation
Key Takeaways
Define Potentials
Prioritization
Ideation
Consider Limitations
UX Design Concept
UI Mock-ups
Understand the product
Understand the user
Develop the concept
Define
Design
Test
Get user feedback
Iterate
Prototyping
Research Scenario
User Testing
Findings Analysis
Rethink the Design
Optimize the concept
Redesign
Finetune
Typology of Use
Audit Use Cases & User Flows
Exploring the typology of usage patterns of new users and power users was among my primary research intents. I performed various methods and analysis techniques to better understand the product, the context of use, and the jobs-to-be-done by the different user targets.
Comparison Testing
The project kicked-off with a client briefing, where I researched the app status, user communication, and business model. I was able to identify the goals and pain points from all previous stakeholder' experience.
From there I defined the research objectives for the current project. I studied the product, the niche, the users, and managed to combine stakeholder goals with user needs. I visualized everything in diagrams and annotated sketches, and started adding analysis findings from the available raw data to map out the solution and discover potentials for further product development.
Next, the design process evolved with further research on the users, user beahvior patterns, jobs-to-be-done and POIs. I was able to evaluate the app stats and compare them with the results of user online surveys to discover inconsistencies and discrepancies between what users say about the app, how they communicate their needs, and how they actually use the app on a daily basis.
This helped me define the main user needs and pain points, and identify the optimization objectives for the next design phase. User testing of iteration prototypes, affinity diagrams, user journey maps, user flow artefacts enabled taking a deep dive into the 3 most common use cases and develop a new UX strategy that solved the issues of user onboarding, app flows and ease of use.
The Process
User attention was spread between 3 options of exploring the app on a very busy dashboard (The user is not led through the app), which might lead to disorientation, interest loss, focus loss (= discrepancy between business goals and user behaviour). The unpredictable user behaviour, leads to possible drop off before reaching a goal and lowers overall interest in the app.
Another question we needed answered through user testing was, if the current Onboarding answers the necessary requirements.
-
Simplify user onboarding & lead the user through the App
-
Channel sustainable user engagement
-
Prioritize Challenges- & Check-Ins features; support gamification approach
-
Make the jobs-to-be-done clear to the users, and the related benefits clear to B2B partners
Issues
Priorities
&Charge strives to improve the EV charging experience by making it more affordable, reliable & fun for drivers.
Based on the research findings and user insights, it was a legitimate design decision to iterate on 1-3 concepts for the optimization of the existing app.
Facilitating intuitive user flows, micro interactions, increasing the ease of use, unifying UI around a cohesive design, and improving the overall user experience were essential focal points within an iterative approach to solve the core user pain points, redesign the IA, and remove user onboarding in its existing form.
The Solution
A/B Testing of Screen Efficiency
Primary & Secondary Research Evaluation
Enabling users understand the app better and be able to achieve their jobs-to-be-done faster required a complete dashboard redesign. The concepts I developed, introduce new users to the main features without friction, increasing engagement, and efficiency of IA. This would allow an increase in downloads and retention rates, as well as more frequent use, and more fun with the app overall.
The project became a long-term cooperation within an agile environment, where I advocate for the user and still manage to be flexible between user needs and stakeholder interests, while at the same time having the creative freedom to take design decisions to the phase of implementation.
