A Guide To Conducting A Mobile UX Diagnostic

A Guide To Conducting A Mobile UX Diagnostic

• By Lyndon Cerejo


• November 4th, 2014


• User ExperienceUser InteractionUser Research


• 0 Comments

Today’s mobile users have augmenting expectations, they are fanatic of faults in their mobile experiences¹, and they protest about bad mobile use on amicable media and by word of mouth. How do we make certain that your mobile knowledge meets or exceeds users’ expectations?

One discerning proceed to brand intensity problems is to control a user knowledge diagnostic, by carrying a few mobile specialists demeanour for intensity problems with a mobile presence. A evidence can be finished during pattern and growth to safeguard that a mobile website or app adheres to best practices and guidelines. It also serves as a good starting prove for a redesign to brand sold opportunities for improvement.

While a evidence can be finished by a singular evaluator, it is some-more effective when conducted by mixed evaluators with opposite strengths and backgrounds. These evaluators should be practitioners good capable in beliefs of user knowledge (UX) for mobile interfaces and in mobile height guidelines, and they should not be closely concerned with a pattern itself. A evidence is not a deputy for contrariety with finish users, yet rather is a discerning routine in a user-centered pattern process².

This essay will news a routine we can follow to weigh a mobile UX, be it for an app or a website accessed on a mobile device. The stairs in this routine are:

1. identify users and scenarios,


2. conduct an evaluation,


3. conduct a group review,


4. document and report.

Alongside a reason of any step, we’ll illustrate a step regulating a United States Postal Service as an oblivious real-world example.

Identify Users And Scenarios

A mobile UX evidence is conducted by consultant evaluators who competence or competence not be active users of a mobile product. To assistance a evaluators transport a mile in a user’s shoes, name one to 3 personas formed on a aim audience, along with scenarios formed on common user tasks and goals. Define a bounds of a evaluation, and make it discerning and fit by seeking a following questions:

1. What should a research concentration on?
   
   Is it a website that would be accessed on a mobile device or a mobile app? If it’s an app, that platform?


2. Which inclination do your aim users use?
   
   One proceed to find out is by looking during web trade and analytics. If that’s not available, afterwards name renouned inclination formed on marketplace share.


3. Which OS versions are being used?
   
   Base this on a height and device.


4. Who are a categorical competitors of a website or app?


5. Is any applicable marketplace investigate available?
   
   This could be attention trends, reports, etc. One instance would be Forrester’s Customer Experience Index³.

We’ll weigh a app for a United States Postal Service (USPS) — “over 2 million downloads!” — on an iPhone 5 regulating iOS 7.1. We’ll illustrate it by a eyes of Mary Jane, an normal residential postal customer. (The persona and scenarios are done adult for this article.)

Persona

I will illustrate a research of a USPS Mobile iOS app (“over 2 million downloads!”) on an iPhone 5 regulating iOS 7.1, by a eyes of Mary Jane, an normal residential postal patron (the persona and scenarios were done adult for this article).

Mary Jane is a 37-year-old operative mom of two, married to a roving consultant. She has a pursuit with stretchable operative hours that align with her kids’ propagandize hours, yet sophistry it all is no easy task. She shops online a lot and has depended on her iPhone for a past 5 years. Mary frequency sets feet in a post office, instead relying on USPS for her selling deliveries, occasional bills and visit mail-in rebates.

Scenarios

• Track packages
  
  Mary frequently shops online and gets deliveries to her door. She likes being means to lane her packages to make certain she receives all as expected. She wants to be means to use her phone to check a standing of tentative deliveries.


• Find location
  
  Mary is on her proceed to collect adult her kids from propagandize when she realizes that currently is a deadline to postmark one of her rebates. She wants to find a circuitously manned post bureau or a drop-off plcae with late pick-up hours.


• Hold mail
  
  The family takes 3 to 4 mini-vacations a year, during that time she places a reason on her mail to forestall any packages from being left during her doorway in her absence. The family’s anniversary getaway is entrance adult in a few weeks, and she wants to place a reason on her mail.

Conduct The Evaluation

A best use is to have dual or some-more evaluators exclusively control a research in 3 parts:

1. scenarios and associated UX,


2. rapid rival benchmarking,


3. overall UX.

Scenarios and Related UX

The initial partial involves evaluating a UX regulating tangible scenarios of use, followed by an investigation of other aspects of a UX.

Step 1: Pick a device and OS. Test “glanceability” with a five-second test. Launch a app or website and demeanour during it for 5 seconds. Then, cover a shade and answer a following: What is being offered, and what can a user do? The app or website passes if your answer closely matches a core offering.

Step 2: Put on your “persona hat” and use a website or app to transport by a scenario. Look for and brand UX issues that a persona competence face in a unfolding — anything that would delayed down or forestall them from completing their tasks. Document a issues by holding screenshots⁴ and creation records as we go. Where possible, use contextual contrariety in a margin (i.e. outward of a office) to expose issues that we competence not have unprotected differently (for example, uneven connectivity when regulating a transport or sell app, or contrariety and glare).

Repeat step 2 until any unfolding for any persona is completed.

Step 3: Chances are, a scenarios did not cover all that a website or app has to offer. Switch from your “persona hat” to your “UX dilettante hat” to weigh pivotal areas not nonetheless covered. Use a horizon such as a one notation in “The Elements of a Mobile User Experience⁸⁵” to classify a evaluation, stability to request issues and take applicable screenshots. we find that focusing on a problems to be some-more valuable, unless we are regulating a scorecard, such as Forrester’s⁶, or we privately need to request strengths as well.

For an app, repeat stairs 2 and 3 for a other identified platforms and inclination to safeguard that a app follows a discipline and conventions of those platforms. For a website, determine that it renders as approaching opposite devices.

For a example, we chose a “Find Location” unfolding to weigh USPS’ app for iOS.

Find Location: Mary is on her proceed to collect adult her kids from propagandize when she realizes that currently is a deadline to postmark one of her rebates. She wants to find a circuitously manned post bureau or a drop-off plcae with late pick-up hours.

Notes for “Find Location” Scenario

Here are some records jotted down during a research of a app in a “Find Location” scenario. Testing was conducted on USPS’ iOS app, chronicle 3.8.5 (the app was updated 18 Dec 2013).

• When a app launches, a dash shade appears for varying lengths of time (as small as a few seconds to over a notation over open Wi-Fi, simulating a guest Wi-Fi network during her children’s school).


• The home shade does not have a trademark or distinguished USPS branding — only a shade with icons.


• The shade titles do not assure Mary that she is streamer down a right path. Tapping “Locations” leads to a shade patrician “Search,” and a titles of successive screens don’t examination possibly (one says “Enter” and afterwards “Refine search”).
  


• The “Location” shade does not have sufficient information, forcing Mary to daub “Show Details” to know a opposite options. Why wasn’t this done a default view?
  


• The same idol is used for “Post Offices” and “Pickup Services.”


• Locating all services during once is not possible. Mary is forced to demeanour them adult one during a time (for example, initial looking adult “Post Office” locations, afterwards going behind and looking adult “Approved Providers”).


• Location services are not activated for a app, and there is no warning or sign to spin it on to use a GPS. Mary is underneath a sense that that functionality does not work.


• No choice exists to enter a hunt radius. Results from roughly 50 kilometers divided are returned.


• The plcae formula do not prove possibly a plcae is open or closed.
  


• When Mary selects a plcae to perspective a details, she has to enhance a boxes for “Retail Hours” and “Last Collection Time” away to perspective that information.


• Going behind from a “Locations” shade crashes a app. Every. Single. Time. (Even after deletion a app and reinstalling.)

Related UX Notes

• The titles used in a app are not user-friendly, yet rather oriented around facilities and functionality. For example, “Scan” (Scan what? Why?); and “Coupons” (Get coupons? No. What coupons can one add? No idea is given.)


• Tapping a “Terms of Use” on a home shade formula in a acknowledgment prompt to leave a app (taking users to a mobile website). Really?!
  


• The submit margin for a ZIP formula does not move adult a suitable numeric keyboard. In a “Supplies” section, a keyboard that appears for a ZIP formula is a alphabetical keyboard, not even a alphanumeric one.


• Many screens do not have titles (for example, try entering an residence for “Supplies”).
  


• The scanning knowledge is inconsistent. It took a few mins for one, yet was quicker a subsequent time.


• The app is blank approaching functionality (such as approaching smoothness date, app notifications and a change-of-address option). The app has fewer facilities than a mobile website (such as an choice to change one’s address).


• The shade to lane a package has a “Scan” button, instead of a required camera icon.


• Information is not common between screens in a app, forcing a user to enter a same information in mixed places (for example, for “Next day pickup,” “Get supplies” and “Hold mail”).


• Deleting a scheduled pickup in a app does not cancel a pickup, and no warning summary is displayed either.
  


• A teenager issue, a “Terms of Use” integrate on a home shade does not align with a rest of a sentence.

Rapid Competitive Benchmarking

Rapid rival benchmarking is a discerning practice to examination how your mobile UX stacks adult opposite a competition’s. To do this, collect a integrate of primary competitors or services that offer identical functionality, and finish identical scenarios, followed by a discerning indicate of their functionality. Look for areas where competitors offer a improved user experience, and request with records and screenshots. For a some-more notation analysis, examination facilities to those of pivotal competitors (Harvey Balls⁷ do a good pursuit of display a relations completeness of features).

Overall UX Feedback

The final step in a particular research is to step behind and weigh a large picture. To do this, examination a following:

• how a user installs a app or finds a website;


• onboarding assistance if it’s an app,


• the cross-channel knowledge (i.e. comparing a app to a website on opposite devices),


• the cross-device experience,


• reviews in app stores (for apps) and amicable networks (for websites and apps),


• comments and feedback perceived by email (if we have entrance to this).

Overall UX Notes

• When a app initial launches, a user is forced to accept a terms and conditions to use a app. (I’ve fought my share of battles with authorised departments on this subject as good — and mislaid many.) However, there are no terms and conditions to accept before regulating USPS’ mobile website.


• The app has no onboarding assistance when initial launched, and no assistance within either.

Here are a records about a cross-channel knowledge (i.e. between a app, mobile website and desktop website):

• The trademark on a mobile website is low in resolution, with important pixelation on “Retina” displays.


• Branding opposite a 3 miss coherence in demeanour and feel.
  


• Carrying over shipment-tracking or any personal information between a 3 channels is not possible.


• The categorical functionality is not systematic consistently opposite channels, nor is pivotal functionality accessible in all 3 channels.


• Touch targets are too tighten together on a mobile website.
  

Here are a records about a cross-device experience:

• Branding appears on a home shade of a Android app, yet not of a iOS app (even yet it is shown in Apple’s App Store).

And here are a records about reviews in Apple’s App Store (negative feedback abounds):

• Location services are inaccurate, and formula could be some-more relevant.


• Scanning doesn’t always work.


• The app freezes and crashes.

Conduct A Team Review

Conduct a group examination event to compare, countenance and total a commentary of a particular evaluations. Evaluators with opposite skills (for example, visible designer, usability analyst) tend to have opposite areas of concentration when conducting evaluations, even yet they are regulating common personas and scenarios and a common research framework.

During a group review, one evaluator should promote a discussion, bringing adult any problem, verifying possibly a other evaluators identified that emanate and are in agreement, and afterwards assigning a turn of astringency to a problem. The evaluators should also brand probable solutions for these issues. The outcome would be a combined list of problems and intensity solutions.

For an extended evaluation, entice other designers to a group examination session, maybe over an extended catered lunch assembly or towards a finish of a day over pizza and drinks. The other designers should have spent some time before to a event (at slightest 30 minutes) familiarizing themselves with a website or app. This will capacitate everybody to try a website or app together as a team, brand and plead problems as they find them, and plead probable solutions.

One evaluator should set a theatre by surveying credentials information and problems identified. This should be followed by a facilitated examination of a website or app (often regulating a structure like a one summarized in “The Elements of a Mobile User Experience⁸⁵” to beam a discussion). Assign a group member to request a session, including a problems identified, ideas, questions and solutions.

Download a representation research list⁹ (XLSX, 10 KB)

Document and Report

The research spreadsheet is a good proceed to constraint and classify problems and recommendations, yet communicating a issues visually is easier. we customarily emanate a slip presentation, orderly by a essay related to above¹⁰. One slip is dedicated to any serious problem, with screenshots and callouts to elaborate. Less serious problems are grouped together according to a screens they seem on. Along with any problem and a impact, list actionable recommendations. For notation evaluations, also ridicule adult pivotal recommendations that residence a problem and incorporate best practices.

Begin a display with slides that set a context and explain a methodology and approach. Mention that a research focuses on identifying problems, so that members of a pattern and growth group do not start flitting around antidepressants when they see a washing list of problems they have to painstakingly work on.

Conclusion

A mobile UX evidence is not a deputy for contrariety with tangible users, yet rather is meant to fast brand problems with a mobile website or app regulating lerned eyes. A evidence will expose many of a tip usability problems¹¹, and since it is comparatively inexpensive and quick, it can be conducted during mixed points in a user-centered pattern process. Diagnostics go a prolonged proceed to improving a mobile experience, shortening flaws and assembly users’ expectations.

Related Resources

• “Summary of Usability Inspection Methods¹²”, Jakob Nielsen
  


• “How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation¹³”, Jakob Nielsen


• “Conducting Expert Reviews: What Works Best?¹⁴”, Janet M. Six


• Mobile User Experience Diagnostic Sample Slides¹⁵ (PDF, 500 KB)


• Sample Evaluation List¹⁶ (XLSX, 10 KB)

(da, ml, al, il)

Footnotes

1. 1 https://econsultancy.com/blog/65041-making-the-most-of-mobile-moments-to-transform-the-customer-experience


2. 2 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/05/02/a-user-centered-approach-to-web-design-for-mobile-devices/


3. 3 http://blogs.forrester.com/megan_burns/14-01-21-introducing_forresters_customer_experience_index_2014


4. 4 http://www.itworld.com/article/2832575/mobile/how-to-grab-a-screenshot-from-iphone–android–and-nearly-any-other-smartphone.html


5. 5 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/12/elements-mobile-user-experience/


6. 6 http://blogs.forrester.com/adele_sage/10-01-13-announcing_forresters_web_site_user_experience_review_version_80


7. 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Balls


8. 8 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/12/elements-mobile-user-experience/


9. 9 http://provide.smashingmagazine.com/evaluation-issue-list.xlsx


10. 10 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/12/elements-mobile-user-experience/


11. 11 http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/effective-he.php


12. 12 http://www.nngroup.com/articles/summary-of-usability-inspection-methods/


13. 13 http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-evaluation/


14. 14 http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/01/conducting-expert-reviews-what-works-best.php


15. 15 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/mobile-user-experience-diagnostic-sample-slides2.pdf


16. 16 http://provide.smashingmagazine.com/evaluation-issue-list.xlsx

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A Guide To Conducting A Mobile UX Diagnostic