guided minds
Problem | Opportunity
Guided Minds is an app that lets users share their stories about hardship and connect with people with similar experience. Founders of Guided Minds app were looking for user experience enhancement for their existing app.
Solution
General UX improvements
Personalized on-boarding process
Individual Profiles
STATUS
MY ROLE
Audience Research
UX/UI Redesign
Usability Testing
Launch date:
October 2019
YEAR
2019
Research
User
User
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Safe space
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Share experience
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Seek encouragement
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Seek advice
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Experience community
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Inspire others
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Private profiles
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Personalized on- boarding
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Easy app navigation
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Provide platform for community
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Guarantee safe space
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Provide relevant content (match people with similar experience)
Guided Minds
UX
User
App Concept
"Universe" metaphor applied to the design of the app signifies community - Guided Minds brings people together so they can help each other in hard times.
"Planets" are individual categories such "Health", "Loss", "Stress", and "Good Vibes". By selecting particular planet users are presented with messages from people who have experience with the particular issue.
"Stars" are video/audio messages from people sharing about their hardship.
Existing App Analysis
As part of audience research I did usability testing on existing app to find out users' major pain points:
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Users were confused with the app concept
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Main navigation was unclear
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Users expressed hesitance to record a video
Top navigation is hard to reach with fingers
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Users were confused about meaning of the icons at the top of the screen
Floating button got lost on the background of busy design
Users didn't understand that this screen is another view of the previous screen
White background differed from the dark blue and contributed to confusion
Majority of users preferred tile view especially in the beginning of using an app
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There was no place to store past recordings
This placement of "favorite videos" (saved) doesn’t allow for increasing number of recordings in the future
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Various content mixed in together
Labels are not clear and inconsistent
Design
Redesign included additions/changes to the Information architecture and user journey for more seamless user experience
On - Boarding
First few screens tell a story of Guided Minds and benefit the app brings to the community. For existing users there is link to "LogIn". For first time users - I indicated the number of screens with the help of progress dots in order to avoid drop-offs.
With the help of personalized on-boarding users will be matched with the relevant stories and messages. Each screen of the on-boarding can be skipped and accessed later.
First step relates to the main goal user perceives and divides all users into 3 main categories:
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People who seek encouragement
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People who want to encourage
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People who want to share their story
Next step of the personalization is to further group users by their interest or "planets", according to the concept of "the universe". There are 4 major planets
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Health
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Bullying
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LGBTQ
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Loss
Personalized on-boarding
Navigation
Within each planet users can select particular issues they would like to hear about or share in the form of keywords. Unlike "planets" users can create their own keywords to further personalize their experience.
Top navigation was difficult to access. Redesigned bottom navigation has been common practice and became mental model for users.
I reorganized IA to enhance core functionalities of the app
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Home - Universe
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Send a message
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Chat
Planets that were not chosen during on-boarding are less prominent but will still be offered to users
Users can now switch between the views
Main menu now consists of functionalities vital to the app goals and intuitive icons
"Account" was taken out of main menu as it is secondary to the goals of the app and serves more as "settings"
"Tile View" lets users see "the Universe" in more organized fashion if preferred
"Universe" Feed
Once users select a planet they are presented with myriads of stars (messages). Originally the app offered messages display in the form of stars in the "universe view" only. Audience research showed that some users were confused and preferred more organized view. New design offers "tile view" upon users preference
"Universe" view of messages
Tile view of messages
As profiles are not public yet, this design allows for storing users personal data, such as users past recordings, other users saved recordings, personalization, along with account settings options.
Profile
Users' past recordings
Other users' recordings
Users can finish or change personalization here
