Background

As our society evolves, more and more students and young adults are using social media. It is what skyrockets the usage of most mediums. In order to create a successful app, it has to appeal to a variety of users. Per evaluation and research, the Lookwide app seems to be missing a younger demographic of users. This redesign focuses on improving the content format of the Lookwide mobile application to appeal to the target audience of university students.

Task 

Duration

To improve the content format with the purpose of making the product appeal to the target audience of university students by adding or taking away app features and integrating our own ideas.

We were to critique, study and improve the application within a strict deadline of 7 days.

Approach

Project Plan

Research & Observe

Question & Collaborate

Sketch & Design

Initial Observations

We were given extensive research on the user demographics of the Lookwide App to help further analyze what pain points to look at. As for 2018, the majority of the user base was middle aged adults in the USA. I also downloaded the app to take note of the problem areas that I felt were within the application itself. 

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User Demographics

Age

Location

Gender

2%

63%

46+

12%

38%

40%

8%

18-24

25-31

32-38

39-45

40%

60%

USA

Male

Female

37%

Rest of the World

Problem Areas within Lookwide

No sense of collaboration or social media features

Limited amount of younger generation (problem statement) + Users as a whole

Unorganized layout and flow/ repetitive features

Best Practices & Inspirations

Because Lookwide is a micro-podcasting and social media application, I took a look at other podcasting and social media applications. I compared each of the applications and pinpointed the strong points that Lookwide did not obtain.

User Studies & Testing

To ensure that the redesign would pertain to its target audience of a younger demographic, I decided to conduct two user interviews with two young adults who enjoy listening to podcasts. The questions I asked were centralized around the reasons they liked certain podcasting applications over another. After I asked them questions over their opinion, I had them open up Lookwide and had them look around, given specific tasks.

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Solutions

Based on the initial observations, application comparisons, user interviews and testing, I chose four features within Lookwide to focus my redesign on: 

Provide a more organized layout

Encouragement to users to post through organization

Provide necessary and relatable content imagery

Provide a collaboration aspect to enhance social media

Implemented Solutions

Conclusion

Overall, I think the reason why Lookwide seems to attract an older generation, is due to the layout and the way everything is set up, as well as the social media sharing aspect. There should be a means of communication between the users to make it a social media platform. Users tend to decide whether or not they like the app in seconds, by what they see on the landing page. In this case, the top portion of the home page should capture the user’s interest to want to scroll more, and to want to keep exploring the rest of the app.

Next time, I would conduct more user studies as well as develop a storyboard for each scenario for a more thorough redesign. 

Onward to the next project