Malika C.

Learning more about your users is the best way to serve them personalized and relevant content, and a helpful step is getting them to sign in. In research 30+ iOS apps, particularly in the travel industry, I found the following trends in encouraging users to sign in.

Profile in the navigation.

Exposing profile as part of the main navigation gives the user something to tap on, which then presents an opportunity to contextually message the user. The Hotels Tonight app explains the benefits of signing in here in a succinct and playful way. Some apps also badge the profile icon in the navigation when the user is not signed in to call attention to the task.

Prompt at launch.

Another common pattern is a full page prompt to get users to sign in right after opening the app. The prompt usually contains brand messaging or an explanation of the benefits of signing in, and the ability to skip if an account isn't required to use the app. By downplaying skip, this approach conveys that an account might be required, and therefore boosts sign-ins.

Prompt on the home screen.

A more subtle approach is messaging the user on the home screen itself about signing in. The Starbucks app does a nice job of emphasizing the benefits of signing in without requiring the user to interact with the content.

Playful messaging.

Today users see "Sign In" and "Create Account" so often that they can become numb to it. Changing up the messaging with something playful and personalized draws attention to signing in and makes it more relatable to the user.

Some iOS ‘Offline State’ competitive research. Some trends I noticed are:

A small, unobtrusive banner that indicates you are offline

The ability to lose the notification with a close or delete icon

A “retry” function that lets you actively refresh your connectivity (although I’m assuming that the app will do this automatically without the user trigger)

I recently moved to NYC and have been using the OfferUp mobile app to buy/sell furniture and other goods. 

The app allows users to quickly post and view available goods. It streamlines the selling process by requiring minimal information and leverages the native mobile camera. Howeverrr...

Inconsistent menus

If the user selects the invite link, the custom menu on the left displays; if the user selects the share link, the native menu on the right displays. Since the menus have the same purpose (sharing a deep link with messaging), why not use the same design pattern? Unless the custom design is significantly improving the experience, its probably best to stick to what users are already familiar with.

Error states and button styles

I would consider using inline messaging to avoid overlapping widgets. Also buttons and triggers throughout the app vary between flat, skeuomorphic, and material design. This gives the app a mixed identity in terms of style, and clickable elements could be easily confused with non-clickable. I would recommend sticking to one style and remaining consistent.

Lack of group actions

Users can sell/buy/watch a list of items, but are not able to perform actions on a group of items. For example, if the user wanted to unlist 10 items the user would have to select each item, select unlist, and confirm. Group actions would increase speed and efficiency for the user. 

The WAVE tool, or web accessibility evaluation tool, on webaim.com has really helped me make my portfolio site more accessible to disabled users. I’ve used the tool to identify low contrast text, skipped head levels, missing alt tags, and many other easily-fixed issues that could significantly improve the usability of the site. Some other tools I’ve found helpful:

Accessibility Bookmarklets

NoCoffee Vision Simulator

After many phone interviews, networking events, and portfolio presentations I landed my first UX job at airline as an interaction designer. A few months in, I was fortunate enough to give interviews to add designers to our team. 

Here are some of the questions we asked our interviewees, and hopefully what I learned from the process will help others really shine during an interview

1. Show me 1 or 2 projects you’ve worked on.

The key here is “1 or 2.” Some interviewees presented as many projects as they could fit in the time frame to show the breadth of their work. While it was nice to see variety, what we really wanted to see was quality and detail. Specifically for an interaction designer, we wanted to see annotated wireframes or a prototype and not the polished final product. 

2. Where do you see yourself most along the design process?

UX is a very broad field; some employers are looking for people who can do it all, but in our case we wanted someone focused on wireframing and interactions. Some portfolio pieces we saw had great visual design and/or UX research, and although those skills are just as valuable they weren’t in the scope of the role being interviewed for.

3. What are some examples of bad UX?

This question stumped most of our interviewees. Everyone had ready-to-go anecdotes about a great website or mobile app they’ve used lately, but sometimes knowing what doesn’t work is just as informative. We were looking for examples of bad UX, but also the explanation of why there were bad beyond the obvious.

4. What’s something interesting you’ve read lately?

The digital design world is dynamic; everyday there are new patterns or technologies that are enhancing user experiences. We wanted to find designers that keep up with the latest practices and trends in the design world.

5. The infamous design challenge

The best way to compare apples to apples is to simply ask a question: design me a “fill-in-the-blank.” We asked interviewees to walk us through their design process for a particular product and some aced it: they started high level and worked their way down, they asked about target users and constraints, and some even mentioned prototyping and testing. Others…well let’s just say the word “user” didn’t even come up. 

Even if you’re asked to design an amusement park, a UX designer’s goal is always the same: create an optimal experience for every interaction between the user and the product.

Recently I was asked to design a payment flow where a user would select a flight itinerary, checkout with a third party, and return to our site for a payment confirmation. Using the requirements and payment flow patterns, I came up with some high level designs for before the user navigates away from our site and after they return to our site. 

But what about the UX in between?

Reading this article reminded me that its important to at least consider the parts of the process that may not necessarily be “under our jurisdiction.” In this case the third party was presenting form fields in a certain order; if our payment confirmation page reflected that order it would create consistency for the user and allow them to find and digest information more quickly.