Case Study
Scavenger hunt mobile app
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Scaventure is a mobile app designed to give friends, colleagues, or any group the ability to set up or participate in scavenger hunts
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People that are looking into scavenger hunt apps would find that while there are several out there, they are pretty complex because they are mostly aimed at large groups or events such as a corporate retreat
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The aim was to provide an experience that made it as quick and easy as possible to set up a hunt and invite people to it, that way people wouldn't download it and see it as too much setup work and abandon ship.
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Overview
What I did
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Research and discovery
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Created style guide
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High and low fidelity wireframes
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Prototyping
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User testing
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Information architecture
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First Steps
Competitive Analysis
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To begin, downloaded and played around with scavenger hunt apps that existed and analyzed strengths and weaknesses. I enjoy this beginning step because I'm able to draw inspiration and get fired up at the opportunity to improve on poor design decisions or missed opportunities I come across.
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High-level key takeaways
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Lack of an intuitive home screen with a practical and actionable dashboard
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No quick way to create a new scavenger hunt, set objectives, and start ​
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Competitors
User Interviews
Then, I chatted with some people. I recorded interviews (over the phone or on video chat) with 8 people to gain insight into people's overall behavior when it comes to their phones and playing interactive games with their friends (video games and otherwise), and to determine what might be a key differentiator.
Results & Affinity Mapping
In my interviews, I found that people can get very easily deterred when they are too many steps or if it isn't clear and straightforward how to get things going and get started, especially when they are trying to do something with a group of friends.
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I organized the insights into a physical affinity map. When possible, I sometimes prefer this way over making a digital affinity map, because I think some movement helps to encourage an engaging discussion and provides a break from looking at a screen. Some main takeaways are below
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People can get very easily deterred when there are too many steps for set up
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They get annoyed when it isn't clear and straightforward how to get things going and get started
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All of these things are even more important when doing something with their friends, where they are even more likely to back out and try something else
User Personas
Using the insights from my interviews and affinity map, I created personas that illustrated what people like and dislike about games.
User Journeys
With personas established, I created user journeys to map user's thoughts and feelings as they navigated the app.
User Flows
After creating personas and user journeys, and before the information architecture was drafted, I created User Flows to discover what screens and actions users would take as they navigated the app.
Information Architecture
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After thinking through some user flows with my personas in mind, I drafted the initial architecture. Then, I did a card sorting session to test it and get an understanding of how others would group the different aspects of a scavenger hunt app, and I took those findings and made site map 2.0, and then made a final 3.0 version once further revisions were made through the testing phase.
Site Map 1.0
Site Map 2.0
Card Sorting
Site Map 3.0
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Wireframes & First Iterations
Initial Sketches of User Flows
Some of my very first ideas thinking through onboarding, creating hunts, and chatting with friends.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes & Prototyping
Grayscale wireframes were then created in Adobe XD and used for the first clickable prototypes and usability tests
User Testing
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The Mid-fidelity wireframes were tested with 6 participants. I scheduled video calls in which the participants were asked to share their screen as I gave them prompts and actions to try to complete while commentating their actions, thoughts, and feeling throughout. The results were analyzed through an affinity map.
The feedback revealed that people preferred:
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An app that doesn't overwhelm them
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A clean interface, especially when it comes to the home screen
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Ease of use in completing tasks
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Minimal steps to do something
Further Iteration & Visual Design
Home Screen
After creating several different ideas for the home screen dashboard, I did some preference testing and listened to feedback to land on the final home screen
Style guide
Hi-Fidelity Mockups
Next Steps
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More usability testing
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A/B Testing with different hunt screen set ups
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Refine onboarding to be more informative of the ways to join a hunt
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Create an option to add admins so a user can restrict who can and can't make changes to the hunt