Austen Eckhart
UX Researcher and Desinger
Austen is an empathetic people person who is able to connect humanity to the tech world. Passionate about the process of creating designs that truly make a positive difference for the people using them and seeing the businesses she does UX work for reach their highest potential.
DAN ECKHART LAW
HOMEPAGE REDESIGN
The Research Process:
I conducted user interviews with six random customers at Starbucks.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Designing a Mobile App for a startup company,
Power Butter
Client Project: Power Butter
IN PERSON USER TESTING: Led by Austen Eckhart
For my final project with General Assembly, my team was assigned to work with a Startup Company called Power Butter. Power Butter asked us to create a MVP native mobile app. I was the Research Lead for this project. This video is a snippet of the In Person User Testing I did on our finalized app. I went out into the field to interview real people that would be using our app and get data on their experiences with it.
USER TESTING RESULTS
For the 4 Flows of our MVP APP
(note that each flow has more screens that are not depicted)
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1. Login Flow
User Task: Since you are a new user to the app, you want to sign up using your email, and navigate through the sign up process.
Metrics | Complete task in under 1 :20
Results :
User 1 = 33 seconds, success
User 2 = 40 seconds, success
User 3 = 57 seconds, success
Feedback:
“Smooth and Intuitive”
“I liked the 1 question per Screen”
“Very Straight forward”
“I liked the ‘Almost Done alert and I also liked the Skip Option.”
“I did not like the Trial Membership page. It stressed me out because I didn’t know if I was going to be forced to put in my credit card information immediately.”
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2. Eccomerce Flow
User Task: You want to set up a Premium Subscription plan for PowerButter’s Peanut Butter, checkout using Apple Pay, and then continue shopping. Show me how you would do that.
Metrics | Complete task in under 2:00
Results :
User 1 = 49 seconds, success
User 2 = 50 seconds, success
User 3 = 45 seconds, success
Feedback:
“I really liked it, but I just wish the “Add to Cart popup stayed longer.
“I think it was very intuitive.”
“I would have liked to have a prompt asking me if I wanted to keep shopping or go to cart.”
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3. Tracker Flow
User Task: You just had peanut butter for breakfast, show me how you would log this in the tracker.
Metrics | Complete task in under 2:15
Results :
User 1 = 45 seconds, success
User 2 = 57 seconds, success
User 3 = 56 seconds, success
Feedback:
“I think it would be easier for users to understand that the plus sign is how you add a meal- if the plus sign was larger and had a label above it, such as “Add Protein.”
“I didn’t understand that ‘Tracker’ meant to track Protein. So when you told me to add my protein in, I didn’t know where to click. I would’ve understood better if the label was ‘Protein Tracker’.”
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4. Account Flow
User Task: Now you just want to make sure your order went through. Show me how you would check your current order
Metrics | Complete task in under :4
Results :
User 1 = 3 seconds, success
User 2 = 20 seconds, success
User 3 = 4 seconds, success
Feedback:
“Very Easy”
“I think it was a little confusing that the boxes were different sizes”
“I also thought to click on Tracker.”
Questions we asked the CEO after our Brainstorming session:
“What exactly is Power Butter- how is it different from other protein Powders"?”
“What Users are you specifically trying to target?”
“What’s the story behind the creation of Power Butter?”
The Beginning:
The Story of how I used my Research skills to help Create an MVP app for Power Butter from start to end:
My team and I were told that our client was a start up company called Power Butter. We had no other insights other than the fact that it is a protein powder based peanut butter and the CEO wanted to create an MVP native mobile App.
At the beginning of this project, we as a team decided on what roles to take on. I choose to be the Research Lead since I had more of an interest in the research side of things. After deciding roles, then we brainstormed questions that we would need to ask the CEO during our first meeting. As Research Lead, I helped lead this brainstorming session.
What I learned from the initial Meeting with Power Butter’s CEO:
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Power Butter Product
Power Butter is a protein based peanut butter that would be beneficial to people who workout often. The CEO had the product branding already designed.
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User Personas
We designed our own user personas from the research that he already had. And the target market he had in mind.
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Problem Statement
Then we came up with a Problem Statement after getting a better idea of what the CEO expected of the MVP app.
Initial Research
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I and my team created a series of questions to ask the Power Butter CEO for our first meeting. To get a good understanding of what Power Butter is. What the business needs are. Understand the CEO’s mission, values, and main goal for our project.
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I crated a user survey. That was designed for users of Power Butter. People that are into fitness. I created a 20 question survey that asked questions about user demographics and behaviors. We ended up collecting data from 100 participants and were able to share this data with Power Butter’s CEO.
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After we got an understanding of our user wants and needs. We starting sketching wireframes based off their favorite apps, especially fitness apps. And took into consideration comparative apps as well. Such as Starbucks and Instagram.
User Research
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Do you currently have any of these food apps?
72% reported to have Uber Eats app
55% reported to have Door Dash app
55% reported to have Starbucks app
We used this information to implement their desings into our app
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When would you normally eat peanut butter as a snack?
39% reported to eat peanut butter during lunch.
We took this into consideration- to use colors that remind you more of lunch, daytime colors.
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Would a fitness app that sells protein, has discounts, and helps you track your protein appeal to you?
57% of our users reported that they would be interested. Which validated us to focus mainly on the features of selling protein and tracking protein for our MVP.
For my Bootcamp, General Assembly, my last project was a real client project. We were given one month to create an MVP app for a startup company called Power Butter. I worked with a team of 4 to create this MVP. I took on the main roles of gathering research to design our app and conducting user tests afterwards. One of my main accomplishments of this app were creating a survey in which we got data for 100 users. My other big accomplishment for this app was to design a user flow for the login flow. Creating a user friendly sign in flows to create the best experience for our users.
For this project, my team split the app’s features into four categories. The sign up/ login process, eccomerce, protein tracker, and account information.
For my login design, I based my designs off of the Peleton App since that was a fitness app that many of my users had and enjoyed using. I based the login process off of theirs. Creating minimal text on each screen to reduce cognitive overload. I used a more masculine background because our main target users are men.