Foreword
Have you ever struggled to find the product you want in disorganized supermarket or corner store? Arbitrary classification of items and aisle order causes confusion for the user and lacks a clear order about what goes where.
The same logic applies to smartphone apps, especially when there are a lot of them. How can we help users find apps easily and quickly?
Identify the user pain point
Let’s say you downloaded a very good app two days ago and want to recommend it to friends. However, you can’t remember the exact app name and where you saved it. You would have to tediously scroll through the hundreds of apps on her phone. Even if you have the foresight to set up app drawers, the process would still be quite troublesome.
Clarify the design goal
Once we’ve identified the true pain points of the users based on their request and requirements, we extract key information and clarify the design goal. The summary could look like this:
When the user forgets the app name, it is troublesome to find it. So when they need the app, they don't know where it is.
If the user has too many folders and the categories become messier, it is difficult to find the desired app.
Therefore, the ultimate design goal is to address the issues in those two scenarios, and we need a better way to help the user look for apps.
Design thinking
We get inspiration from daily scenarios such as the one shared in the preface. People may not naturally set up an organization scheme that works on a long term basis. Systems with poorly thought out or nonexistent categories become a strain to use, snowballing as more items are added into their system.
We can start from the following questions:
If the user doesn't like to actively organize things, what can we as UX designers to help them do so? What capability can we implement into our system to actively help the user categorize those things? We want to reduce disorganization and help the user quickly find what they need through reasonable and appropriate classifications. In the end, our team came up with the solution of automatic classification tags.
Even if the user completely forgets the app name, they can use their impression of the app's general type to look through the app tags. Users don’t have to manually create so many folders through our automatic categorization design.
In developing app classification tags, we considered details such as whether whether to allow the tags to be moved, added, removed, customized and recategorized.
Sketching our scheme
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Creating interactive prototypes design
Scheme #1
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We considered a direct classification design. Users can swipe left or right to switch between categories and long press a tag to adjust the tags order. It is also possible to manually create tags and add/remove apps to/from tags with high flexibility. These are just a few of the many screenshots we created.
Scheme #2
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In this prototype, the current drawer layout is not changed, and the category tags only appear when the user taps Search. This is because finding the app with tags is actually a type of search. The user can search for the app directly with the keyboard or tap the tag to find it. The user can tap a tag to switch to it, and long press it to adjust its order.
Reviewing our prototypes
Every Thursday afternoon, we hold a review where every team member can share their insights and opinions. In this case, scheme #2 was chosen as the final solution.
The rationale was as follows:
- Tags are put in the search bar and work as a part of the searches, so they will not affect the users' habits. The tags are in line with OnePlus' overall style and design philosophy.
- Scheme #2 is unintrusive and imperceptible to the users when not in use. Users can use tags in this design with ease whenever needed.
Getting user feedback
After a stable version is developed, we start to test and validate it. During the closed beta phase, detailed questionnaires about user experience and installation packages are distributed in user forums.
After they used this new design for one to two weeks, we summarized the issues raised by users and revisited the current design. We found that going with design scheme #2 was a good choice. It even slowly changed some heavy folder users' habits. As the system automatically performs app classification, the homescreen became cleaner and faster to use.
Final thoughts
Many design inspirations are actually derived from our daily life. Every design, from request, output to the final solution, needs constant adjustment and polishing. In this process, it's crucial to listen to the user's voice. That’s why our designs are always user-oriented.
Welcome feedbacks about categorized tags:
https://zh.surveymonkey.com/r/LM9DCL8 Click to expand...
