Project Overview
Background
One of the most rewarding experiences I've had at Salem Five is the opportunity to work on improvements within the Mobile App because it was my first opportunity to make a very visible change to one of Salem Five's most actively used used applications. As a customer myself I regularly use this tool, and as a new employee I was thrilled with the chance to be an integral part in the overhaul of the Mobile App from a UX & Design perspective.
Project Date
Fall 2019My Role
- UX Design
- UI Design
The Problem
When the app was initially launched prior to my employment, the design was left in rough shape. Most of the colors were left as shades of gray and looked more like a dev environment than an actual live product. It was very cumbersome to navigate through and didn't feel like the app was guiding me through my experience. After speaking with regular users of the mobile app I learned was not alone in my assessment. I actually believed that this company provided some great services to its customers with its products, so I decided to make it my personal goal to help make this tool more pleasant to use.
This is a screen of the app at launch... no, I'm not kidding.
Research & Design
I first had to understand what was feasible to be changed and what was fixed to the templates within the system because we didn't have free reign to develop whatever we wanted. Once I had knowledge of this, I talked to different groups of people about what they liked/disliked about the current app vs. what competitors are doing and incorporated ideas into mockups and prototypes. I worked closely with Marketing to make sure we stayed true to brand and that they were on board with some of the suggested changes. I then divided the ideas we had into 2 groups: what I know we could change now, and what we'd like to have in the future.
The initial changes were largely straightforward adjustments like color and copy modifications, but these simple changes made an immediate impact on the quality of the application. By simply adding some style and moving certain elements around the application became much more user friendly, but I didn't want to stop there. After making what improvements we could within the current system, I made a series of proposed changes based on user feedback and competitive analysis to the vendor that would enhance the experience. We will work with our vendor to implement these in future releases.
Outcomes
Since the improvements that were implemented our scores have risen to a 4.7 in the app store and a 4.5 in google play. Month over month the number of users that engage with the mobile app has been trending up since Q1 of 2020, and largely all of the feedback we have received both internally and from users has been overwhelmingly positive. As a user myself, I am very pleased with the work that we have done and what we've accomplished thus far.
