I'm Tanja Oberst
UX & UI designer
I design usable and delightful experiences to connect users and technology
I design usable and delightful experiences to connect users and technology
Goal
This map illustrates the basics of Lean UX. I illustrated it to explain the user centered work process in a playful way that sticks. It's the foundation of the workshop "From rainbow shitting unicorns to gorilla apps – become a UX pirate" which I hold with iOS developer Markus Kopf.
Challenge
Three friends of mine and I founded nowr a few months ago after we recognized that it’s often hard to keep up with our social life. We find it awkward to bail on friends by canceling appointments, when others cancel our appointments, or even when we make no plans at all. Our insight was that as we grow older, life becomes a series of planned appointments and it becomes harder to have spontaneous fun.
Hence we created nowr — a solution in the form of an app — to creates this freedom and possibility for spontaneous gatherings to happen. With nowr we can easily broadcast our own availability as well as see our friends’ frictionlessly.
Process
In my role as the UX designer I worked on concept, user flow, all visual interfaces for web and mobile. Our first MVP required three inputs and one confirmation tap. The user tests showed that this was inconvenient, bordering on irritating with too much noise being caused. From there, we reduced it to one single gesture.
Solution
To set the amount of time available, you can intuitively use your finger to drag on the digital clock face and then releasing it. Once that is done, your availability becomes automatically visible to your list of friends. Fixing an appointment is just one more tap on one of the visible friends to type in a message.
Learning
The earlier you test your hypotheses, the sooner you can begin to iterate to a more optimal solution that works best for your user.
If you like to get a free invitation as soon as we launch nowr, drop me a line.
Challenge
In this digital age, why do so many of us still prefer reading printed books? And under what circumstances might we prefer to read on a smart device instead? These were the two questions we sought out to solve for this project with iBook as the choice of app to improve.
Process
From our qualitative research, we discovered two main personas: Readers who read for educational purpose and readers who read to be entertained.
For entertainment reading, we found out that disconnecting and relaxation is the priority. However this was different for educational reading where a user has a different set of goals: summarizing, reconnecting to the text and repeating.
We decided to focus our solution on digital educational reading, because we saw the value that can be created from a smartphone user’s perspective. Beside from having a different look & feel, we noticed another big difference when comparing print books with digital books — skimming for relevant information.
Through an iBook means that a reader has to jump from reading position to the selected page. It was that or swiping to skim. With e-books usually going into hundreds of pages, this is an especially tedious process, unlike a print book, where you can rapidly skim through and get a glimpse of every page and note.
Skimming and glimpsing notes at the same time gives the feeling of control over the content. It also helps to quickly refreshing the memory of the read, helping him to reconnect to the text with ease.
Creating a seamless and smart way of skimming mode into the existing user flow of iBooks proved to be a challenge. The first low-fidelity prototype was basically a zoom function where one could jump between three zoom levels. The finding here was that the execution was too rigid, hence I pivoted.
My second attempt was zooming with a pinching gesture which was smoother, but user testing revealed that although people are used to the pinching gesture from map apps, they didn’t expect this function in an e-reader app and therefore didn’t use it intuitively.
Solution
This lead to another pivot and round of iteration, this time accessing the overview mode through an one tap navigation. To switch between reading and overview mode I added a flip transition to give the user half a second time to be prepared for changing the mode. Knowing what comes next gives the feeling of control. The reading position stays safe on the backside of the overview mode. I was inspired by reading a print book. View the interaction here You can read more about the process and our user research on my medium blog post
Learning
Even when users use some gestures everyday, don’t expect them to know how your app works just because you use the same gestures in your app. The context of how those gestures are normally used plays a huge role in their behaviors. Icons can also have a huge variety of meanings and they should always be tested.
What’s your take about these new features? Drop me a line. Also if you would like to integrate it in your app.
Challenge
The biggest challenge in creating a logo is to defining and bringing across in a matter of seconds, a clear and original feeling on what type of feelings a brand should evoke.
Process
To do this I begin with a thorough analysis of the brand’s principles, target group and their competitors. Afterwhich I begin brainstorming and sketching out on paper my vision of what the new logo could be, before transforming them into digital prototypes which I then try out on stakeholders and consumers.
Solution
I test and iterate on the logo art until it meets the desired perception across stakeholders to ensure that it delivers the highest impact.
Learning
A logo is the visual basement of the corporate identity of a brand. It needs to be treated sensitively. The slightest nuances in font, color, shape – to just name a few constraints – can have a harmful impact on the perception of a brand.
