Apple Mail
Improve the app through user research
Target audience
Who?
Users with an iPhone who send / receive emails, but use a different email app than Apple Mail.
This means a large-scale audience
Why?
They prefer using email apps on a mobile phone because is much easier and quicker.
The app must be quick and easy.
Where?
They can use the app everywhere: at home, while walking on the street, at work, while watching TV.
Challenge
This was a personal project I used to improve Apple Mail
app and fix what I considered a pain-point in the design and the user experience.
I chose three tasks to test with users to understand the problem. Progressively, I set up possible following steps to undertake with a team.
For this project I focused on the research process.
My Role
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Test the app myself to identify possible pain-points in the user experience.
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Choose three tasks to test with users to understand their behaviours, goals and blockers.
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Identify the problems and design a solution.
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Organise following steps to undertake with a team.
Project Time
1 week
Steps to follow
Define three tasks to improve the user experience.
Test the app with users and gather insights.
Analyse the insights.
Report findings to stakeholders.
Plan following steps.
Tasks
Three tasks to perform to improve the user experience
User tests
Gather users' needs, behaviours and goals
Participants
3 users - 30 to 35 years old
Users who don't usually use Apple Mail as their main email app
Testing method
3 tasks to accomplish on the existing app
Test duration
30 minutes each user
Task 1
Add a new account
3/3 users confused New Mailbox with New Account.
Users thought that creating a New Mailbox was equivalent to creating a New Account. They were very confused.
0/3 users were able to complete the task.
Users could not add a new account because the app doesn't include this option. They were very frustrated.
Task 2
Delete an email
3/3 users took around 30 seconds to complete the task.
Users took way too long to figure out how to delete an email.
3/3 users got wrong at least once.
Each user had a different mental model compared to the app.
3/3 users thought to swipe left/right to delete.
They all thought that swiping left/right would have deleted the email.
Task 3
Archive/Unarchive an email
3/3 users were able to archive an email easily.
The app allows users to archive an email very easily.
3/3 users took more than 30 seconds to find the archive.
Users took way too long to find the archive and the archived email.
0/3 were able to unarchive an email.
Users could not understand how to unarchive an email and two of them could not even find the archived email.
Users' comments
Users' main comments while testing the app
What are we fixing next?
Include an option to add different accounts.
Other competitors like Google do this really well.
Prioritise the action "Delete".
Swipe left/right seems to be the best option.
Include the archive in the main menu.
Let's not make users feel lost.
