i'M
linda virtue
A Case Study on Onboarding
Demonstrating Unique Value & Establishing User Trust
what is koya?
KOYA | /koi-ya/
(n). A magical message
KOYA is a hyper-personal communication platform,
using time mapping & geo fencing. Its technology fascilitates meaningful touchpoints through location specific messages and gifts.
It was a dilemma; in order for KOYA to perform its magic, it needed sensitive data.
We quickly became aware that our work with this wonderful brand would require a human-centered design approach, grounded in empathy.
KOYA’s existing onboarding process makes it difficult for users to set up and engage with the app.
Because of this, users are dropping off during the initial onboarding & set up.
How might we seamlessly onboard users, while showing them the unique value of what KOYA has to offer new users?
THE CHALLENGE
The KOYA team came to us concerned about their onboarding process. They saw that they were losing users at early stages of engagement, and they knew they needed to figure out why.
They were not confident that they effectively communicated the unique value of the app. They suspected the reason may be because of a wariness around privacy issues.
the duration
Three Weeks
my role
UX Designer on a team of four.
setting the stage:
the problem space
"Everyone wants some magical solution to their problem and everyone refuses to believe in magic"
- Lewis Carroll
At its essence, KOYA is in the business of deepening relationships. It comes to life on a world stage at a time where human connection is more valued than ever.
Yet, simultaneously, a time when our vulnerability is exposed as we question the security and trustworthiness of the very tool we are forced to depend on.
the audience
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The approximate 28,000 couples in long distance relationships in the US.
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Millennials & GEN Z's.
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Families and friends separated by distance.
DELVING INTO DISCOVERY
Before diving into our research, it was important to define our goals.
WHAT WOULD A THRIVING KOYA LOOK LIKE?
We imagined:
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an onboarding process that communicated KOYA's unique value right off the bat.
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Users feeling a sense of trust and delight while discovering its capabilities.
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Users having clear context for sharing private data.
Our first step was to discover...
Where were the friction points ?
Why were these areas of concern to them?
What key factors were motivating users to drop off?
What are user preferences with on-boarding, in general?
DECIPHERING FACT FROM FICTION
"Science is magic that works"
- Kurt Vonnegut
We started our research by evaluating the current app at its baseline.
First, verifiable, measurable data through usability testing.
USABILITY TESTING
We put KOYA into the hands of users, giving them clear tasks..
We observed them make their way through the app.
THE TASKS
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Sign up through onboarding
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Sending your first KOYA.
THE USERS
Ten people, GEN Z and Millenials ...the target audience for KOYA.
what we learned about usability
a lack of context
Almost all users skipped the onboarding video, which led to little understanding of the app.
"I don't want to sit through a video. If there's an option to skip ... that's me !!"
"Wait a sec...why do they want my contacts? Are they gonna try to reach all my friends?"
reluctance to share sensitive data
Many of the steps, including sharing private information are mandatory causing users to hesitate and question.
WHAT WE LEARNED
a lack of context led to a lack of clarity on purpose
confusion
Lack of clarity & context thus led to confusion about the purpose of features and an overall disconnection from the intended experience of the app.
"If I take the time to go through all the onboarding, and i still don't get it ... you lost me"
USER INTERVIEWS
Our next step was to conduct user interviews, for more qualitative feedback; how users felt about the process.
user interviews
This is where we set out to get qualitative data.
We wanted to understand how users feel when going through an onboarding process for any app.
the discussion guide
THE interviewees
Five people, GEN Z and Millenials ...the target audience for KOYA.
what we learned from interviews
ONBOARDING
Users want a clear, easy process that is clear in describing function and purpose.
CONTEXT
Users will share sensitive data IF they have context as to why it is needed and how it is used.
CONTROL
Users want to use the app without going through mandatory onboarding. Users tend not to like mandatory anything!
developing the koya persona
To leverage all these insights from our research, we created a persona. This caricature based directly on real data about the target audience, allows us to deepen our empathy, and always guides us back to the KOYA user.
MEET AVA
Our next step was develop our persona, Ava.
Her persona is a semi-fictional representation of our target users. Her caricature is based on our user research.
it's all about the journey ...
Our persona led us to our journey map, taking a basic task that Ava needs to perform in KOYA; onboard and send her boyfriend a KOYA.
Here we consider and highlight her emotional painpoints
We plot her highs and lows
Her highs emphasize the strength and reason for being of the pp.
Her lows show us all the opportunities to improve the design.
the opportunities we found
COMMUNICATE UNIQUE VALUE
Express the unique value of KOYA as quickly as possible, in a delightful way
MAKE ONBOARDING SEEM LIKE IT ISNT
Guide users. Let learning happen AS they use the app.
GIVE CONTEXT
Especially where data sensitivity is concerned.
ALLOW CHOICE
A sense of controllability is essential for establishing trust.
the alchemy of design studio
The collaborative process of Design Studio is always enlightening. It was a fantastic opportunity to include the KOYA team in rapidly ideating. Focusing in on the opportunties we now knew we had to improve, we welcomed all ideas at how to visualize the re-design.
the real magic: turning problems into solutions
We found that users were not grasping the unique value & concept of KOYA
SO ...
we created an interactive instructional experience combined with the ability for users to send their first KOYA. This educates users about what a KOYA is by guiding them through the process
We implemented arrows to signify the interactivity involved
Users were skipping the initial video explaining KOYA's added value.
SO ...
We created an interactive carousel that educated users upfront about what this app is before signing up.
We replaced the video with illustrations to visually communicate the added value of KOYA
We realized that users wanted to first learn what KOYA was before agreeing to sign up.
SO ...
We carefully placed the sign-up page after the carousel
PROTOTYPE
testing our design
Finally, we moved into two rounds of usability testing with our prototype. Here we looked for quantitative measure on functionality so that we could asses improvement efficiently.
USABILITY TESTING
We put KOYA into the hands of users, giving them clear tasks..
We observed them make their way through the app.
THE TASKS
-
Sign up through onboarding
-
Sending your first KOYA.
THE USERS
Five people, GEN Z and Millenials ...the target audience for KOYA.
our comparative scores
We were excited about our testing results. We measured our improvements in three ways:
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success rate
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easiness rating
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time on task
We tested for the length users took to onboard and send their first KOYA. We cut down the time it took to do this task by 3:66 minutes!
The easiness rating went up by 1 star with users giving it a 4 out of 5.
The success rate which measures the ability for users to directly complete this task increased by 30%.
it was important also, that we asked users for feedback
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Whether they could describe at a high level, what KOYA offered.
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If they felt they had context for sharing sensitive data.
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If they found the process easy to use and delightful
all particpants confirmed positively for all of the above
KOYA's unique values persisted.We aligned with the voice of their brand and their vision, which honored most ...
01
connection
02
intentionality
03
playfulness
04
trust
05
kindness
Our user research enabled us to contribute to its' iteration successfully, establishing trust with users and clarifying the essence of what this tech for good mobile app offers.
next steps & recommendation
As we moved into the final stages of the design and development phase we have identified 3 main areas of focus for our next steps, which we shared with the KOYA team in final presentation.
Make the changes!
Adjust the areas that were causing most friction, including making privacy optional & switching video with interactive onboarding
More Testing
Conduct another round of usability testing, and include the changes from those tests, identifying any further areas of friction.
Consider API's
Spotify, or Youtube for users to connect their music swiftly
Consider new ways to share a KOYA
The home page re-design offers new avenues to present this call-to-action
implementation
For ease of handing over our design to engineering for implementation, we included the following:
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A Spec Doc, including
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A style guide
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High fidelity mockups with annotations
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A link to the prototype
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An asset file