ExpertIn

An app for connecting students with experts

PRODCT DESIGN

A preview of a mentoring web app on an iPhone and an iPad

Project info

The project took 5 months to get it to a stage of validating high-fidelity designs

The team on this project included:

Methods

Research

Usability Testing

Preference Testing

Prototyping

User Flow

Affinity Mapping

User Journey Map

Design Language Systems

Sitemap

Tools used

Balsamiq

Sketch App

InVision

Marvel App

Usability Hub

Optimal Workshop

iMovie

Skype

Project background

ExpertIn is a web app that connects students and experts online. The web app enables students to find an expert that can provide them with feedback on their work. The communication happens during video calls. The area of expertise includes mainly students and experts from a design field.

App demo: ExpertIn Demo.

App demo

Project details

Problem statement. People in creative fields need a way to connect with experts in their fields because they want to receive feedback on their work.

Possible problems:

There are already many established apps that help to connect experts with students.
Acquiring users to use the service (both students and experts) and then converting them into frequent users can be difficult.
Motivating users (both students and experts) to use the app can be challenging.

Solution. An app that helps students find expertise from reliable experts.

Competitor analysis

To identify the market my app was entering I decided to conduct a competitor analysis. I used the SWAT Analysis method to help me organise my thoughts. This helped me narrow down these apps’ weaknesses and cleared out opportunities for my app.

I looked into two apps: Jinitto and Quora.

SWOT analysis of Quora, highlighting its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in design and user experience.

Quora app - analysis

SWOT analysis of Jinitto, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in its expert advice app.

Jinitto app - analysis

Research and interviews

To gain a better understanding of my potential users I run a survey with 20 people and conveys interviews with three potential users. All of my participants were English speakers, in creative industries and were 18 and over.

Research goals

To learn who the users identify as an expert.
To identify what is the current experience users have if they want to obtain feedback on their creative work.
To learn what is a preferred way of receiving feedback from experts and how the users would like to pay for it.

The following are just a few findings from the survey I run.

Bar chart showing top indicators of professional expertise: experience, reputation, qualifications, and awards.

Bar chart showing how people get feedback on creative work, with colleagues as the most common source.

Two bar charts showing preferences for expert feedback: prerecorded videos over video calls, and pay-per-piece over hourly.

Meeting users’ needs

A clear description of the experts’ experience within the field
Clarity on what the experts’ expertise is

To use the language of the users. Most of my participants usually gain feedback from their colleagues and communicate with a simple tone of voice.

Choice of packages on expertise feedback, e.g. scheduling of a video call with a pre-recorded feedback, and scheduling of just a video call.

An ability to reach out to its potential users via Facebook groups and forum groups in a particular expertise.

Clarity on what kind of feedback is expected from the .

To offer mentorship programs (as a way of motivating the users to come back and use it again).

User development

With the information gathered, I created an ideal user persona, and a user journey—that show the user’s experience when they look for an expert using the app—as well as the user flow.

Persona

User journey

Sitemap

The following sitemap shows how a user could experience the app when using it as an expert or/ and student:

Sitemap

Usability testing

After creating my low-fidelity prototypes I conducted a usability test with 6 participants who were between 21 – 50 years old (3 males and 3 females). It was performed both in-person and remotely. In-person testing: it took place at the participants’ company (with four participants); remote testing (with two participants) using Skype and Facebook messenger. Both of the tests were moderated and recorded (with the participants’ consent).

The goal of this usability testing was to establish learnability for new users who are interacting with ExpertIn for the first time. The participants acted as potential ‘students’ of the app and used both a mobile and a desktop device. During this usability testing I asked my participants to complete the following scenario tasks:

You’ve prepared a marketing campaign for your partner’s job. You now need some professional feedback on it. Using ExpertIn, find an expert that could provide you with feedback on this marketing campaign.
You’ve found a person (Daniel Lewis) that is shown to be an expert in ‘marketing’. Visit their profile and provide more details on your project (including providing them with a copy of your marketing campaign). Note that you usually store your files in Dropbox.
You’ve now provided more details on your work to the expert. Select 4th of March, noon, as the date and time you want to have a call with the expert.

For a detailed look of the Usability Test Script, feel free to explore it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kAxxOxVhr63KKLWJzz6WBxUgpHA1wRn5.

Usability testing findings

I gathered approx. 3hrs of recordings. With so much data I decided to organise it by creating an affinity map and divide them into four categories: Positive Quotes, Negative Quotes, Observations, and Errors. This gave me a meaningful overview of the problems with the app:

Affinity map

To measure the severity of the problems I also created the rainbow spreadsheets. You can preview them here: mobile and desktop. For the purposes of this portfolio piece, I am highlighting three issues (out of many) I improved:

Issue #1

Confusion with a new page being opened after clicking on the search field (on a mobile) and uncertainty if the searched experts are experts in the field they were searched in.

Suggested change: Do not take users to a new page and add expertise tags to every expert.

UI issue in expert search before changes, showing an expert list, empty results screen, and incomplete search suggestions.

Issue #1 - Before the change

Issue #1 - After the change

Issue #2

Confusion with what the ‘Check’ icon means (if noticed at all).

Suggested change: Change the ‘tick’ icon to either ‘Save’ or ‘Done’.

UI update in Dropbox file selection, showing before (left) and after (right) improvements to navigation and clarity.

Issue #2 - Before (left) and After (right) the change

Issue #3

Intimidated by the number of boxes to fill out in order to contact the expert; inability to decide what information to include.

Suggested change: Combine the boxes into one and provide suggestions (potentially in a form of templates?) on what information should be provided to an expert.

UI update for booking a video call, showing before (left) and after (right) improvements in form clarity and scheduling.

Issue #3 - Before (left) and After (right) the change

High-fidelity prototype

The app’s final look and feel (on a mobile device) can be seen below. You can also view a demo of it on YouTube by following this link: ExpertIn Demo.

Signup screen

Email signup screen

Filled email signup screen

Loading screen

Experts screen

Search functionality

Smart search suggestion

Filtered search results

Expert screen

Contacting the expert

File upload

Call booked

UI components

To provide a guide for the design style and aesthetic for ExpertIn, I also created a basic library of UI components. This document will be updated accordingly and provided to the team to ensure unity in design across multiple platforms.

Learnings

Whilst working on this project, I was reassured again of the power of iterative process in design. This project allowed me to run my solutions to UX problems by my potential users, and then introduce their feedback into my designs. It’s been an invaluable experience that allowed me to provide the best user experience whilst also empathising with business goals.

Thanks for reading!