Capshot

Capshot

An evaluative research case study

For this meme-making app, the main concern was the low retention rate. I conducted usability testing which highlighted the main features of ‘reply’ and ‘remix’, weren’t understood by the users.

We re-worked the user flows for onboarding and added elements of gamification to increase learnability. This led to a 25% increase in retention rate.

Business questions

My stakeholders consisted of the CEO and COO of the company.

The cofounders highlighted a need to understand:

  • why do users not use the app after installing?

  • why was ‘remix’ as a feature not used much?

  • how do we build a user base for this product?

Research Goals and methods

How can we better understand how users interact with Capshot, in order to improve the experience of creating and browsing memes?

Research Goals:

  1. Evaluate how people are currently interacting with the Capshot app

  2. Understand their pain points, frustrations, and barriers about the features and how they would improve it

I proposed that we conduct usability testing and heuristics

    1. We wanted to understand how our users experience the current app.

    2. Understanding where they’re stuck and asking questions at that point to understand what exactly they are confused about.

    3. to understand which aspects were and weren’t discoverable.

    1. The product is in its early stages and there are issues of inconsistencies in design pointed out even by the co-founders. This could be solved with heuristics.

    2. The output involved creating new designs, could be helpful to use heuristic principles as a base to evaluate current designs, alongside usability testing

Recruitment criteria

Recruitment was through phone call screening, after sending out a broadcast message asking for interest in meme, meme making, availability for 40 mins.

  • Questions asked:

    1. Do you create memes?

    2. When was the last time you created?

    3. Where did you upload it?

    We screener for those who have either successfully created / attempted to create a meme in the last year.

Usability Tasks & Usability guide

I consulted with the co-founders and we decided to focus on ‘Login’, ‘Remix a post’ and ‘reply to a post’. I conducted usability testing with the app ‘Capshot’ via Zoom or Google meet. I followed the discussion guide below. I recorded/ took notes as per participant’s consent. Each UT went for about 40 mins each.

  • The founders hypothesized that the login process was long and wanted to check if that is the actual case. There was a concern that people are starting to funnel out even before starting to use the app

  • This feature allows the user to take an existing meme template (Image or an existing collage of images) and add different text / caption to it.

    Why: since this was a prime-feature of this application, co-founders wanted to see if this selling point that they envisioned, is at all working out in their favour (Image on the left bottom)

  • This was to reply to a meme, with another meme and to share that with the world. This was also a top-feature of the app and they wanted to get user feedback on how the experience is, what could be improved if at all

  • “Thank you so much for taking out the time! Have you been able to download the app from the playstore? I’m interning with this company and we’re trying to understand from users what works well, and what doesn’t, so please be honest about your experiences it’ll help us a lot. The purpose is to the test the product and not in any way test your ability to use this product or any such ability.

    (Looking back in 2023, I wouldn’t use the same terms as used on the app.. like remix/reply )

    Let’s begin

    1. First, please login to this app

    2. Could you use this post’s base and ‘add a different?

    3. Could you reply to a post?

    4. Could you post a meme?

    5. Could you please Invite a friend?

    6. Could you create a buddy list?

    while prompting them to share their thoughts, and asking for challenges they feel as they’re going about the task. Following up with ‘why’ when appropriate to better understand.

Research finding

  • A meme is ‘remixed’ when the basic template has different text/ image elements added to the base, this is where the audience could be creatively inspired.

  • When a different meme is used as a response to a meme post, it becomes a ‘reply’. How useful is this difference? How is it perceived?

Ideation workshop

I presented findings, both app evaluative design changes and the larger strategic problems to the team. Then we ran some How might we discussions using the Octalysis framework to think through how we can solve them.

1. ‘Glowing choice’ : This was to reduce the overwhelm caused by a heavy onboarding.

2. ‘Evolved UI’ : We thought of how some games have where as the user levels up, the UI shows more complex features. This could help with the overwhelm.

3. Re-thinking remixing and replying : Asked the co-founders to consider running a future research study on understanding if this is how users thought of co-creating memes.

Impact

We re-worked the user flows for onboarding and added elements of gamification to increase learnability. This led to a 25% increase in retention rate.

I. Strategic Changes

  1. We focused on creating modes to clarify ‘remix’ and ‘replies’. We used Evolved UI by setting up modes

    1. Within the mode, glowing choice onboarding helped increase learnability.

  2. Using ‘chat’ as a place to co-create memes in ‘safety’ away from the eyes of the feed, to provide a safe launch space before posting on the feed.

    • While reply already existed in the app, testing helped us see how unnecessary interactions (see II.2) made it harder to understand the purpose of meme replies on the feed.

  3. We also ideated on strategies to grow the user base, as part of our marketing campaign

II. Design changes

  1. We reduced the length of the existing onboarding (by removing date of birth, feed preferences) and focused on understand what someone was looking to consume on the app, to then accordingly show flows for ‘reply’/ consume or ‘remix’ memes

  2. Here are some low-fi designs, which reflect how we reduced clutter in the app

    • Many steps as part of onboarding, which were aim at understanding the person, to personalise their feed (Preferences, )

    • UI clarity to distinguishing between own post and others’ post

    • Comment UI simplified: Text only, media only formats

    • Post options

    • Navigation simplified

  3. User flows made as part of the marketing strategy