Hypothetical re-design user experience on the flagship notes app of Google
About the project
Overview:Re-design of a few features in Google Keep to improve the user's experience on the application Category: Hypothetical Re-design Project Timeline: 28th June- 2nd August '22 My Role: All parts of this case study have been executed and managed by me
Project Background As an old user of Google’s note-taking app Keep, I always felt like the app could do more and should be more accessible. My thoughts were validated when I came across Keep’s play store review section. Many users complained of similar issues and that’s what inspired me to attempt re-designing of the app.
About Google Keep Keep is Google’s free note-taking app allowing users to capture, edit, organize, collaborate and share notes across various device platforms. It has 4.1 star rating with 1 million reviews and over 1 billion downloads.
Challenges The app is widely used and loved by a lot of users, so to attempt this re-design project was intimidating, to say the least! Ensuring the re-design blends well with Google’s products and widely known consistent design
Understanding Users
• The easiest way for me to connect with direct users and understand their needs was through the review section on Google Play Store (shown in image below)
• I scanned reviews for six months (February 2022- July 2022) to study the feedback given by users and observed the following insights
• To ensure authenticity, I also asked a user in-person (User X) to download and use the app for a month (30th June - 30th July 2022)
Research Insights
• The app lacks text formatting options such as making it Bold, Italics, Underlined, etc.
• The app should also have text highlighting or colouring feature to create emphasis
• To make it more accessible the app should also have the editable option to change text size as per user’s comfort
User personas
Basis the research and feedback, I created user personas which helped me in visualizing user’s journey, their pain points and how can they be solved.
I am looking for an app to make notes and keep record to refer later because I need help remembering day-to-day stuff.
Punita
User
I need an app to help me juggle between tasks because I'm a work-from-home dad with lots of chores to take care of.
Rajat
VP of Company
UX suggestions and Re-design process
• Being a user and UX designer, my way of observing an app and how my own experience can be improved made me curious to see if there were more users like me. As my thoughts were validated, I felt even more motivated to take a deep dive and understand what can be done to solve these user pain points.
• Google Keep is a great app with a huge amount of users who are used to of Google’s products and their consistent features
• The hypothetical re-design was made keeping the original design in mind, to ensure seamless blending of new features and make it easier for users to navigate through
• To ensure these inputs, I had to study and go through many Google’s products and their design system to make observations, learn and implement design changes that can stay true to their original design
• I didn’t want to make major changes in the app through this re-design, the idea was only to address the user pain points (text formatting and text editing options) and provide solutions
Ideation
Paper sketches
I used paper sketches and low-fidelity wireframes to begin the design process and create better visualization leading to the final mockups.
User Testing
• It was challenging to reach out to the app reviewers, therefore user testing was conducted with User X • The revised version of Google Keep enhanced User X’s experience through easier and improved functionality • The feedback showed there’s still a need for better organization on the platform
Takeaways
• Since so many users are already used to Google’s product consistency and this app’s basic feature, I wanted to stay as true to the original design as possible to maintain that consistency
• I had to learn and go through various Google’s products and Google’s Material Design to ensure that the features are close and similar to the brand’s original designs
• Ideally wanted to reach out to the users from the PlayStore review section to get their feedback on this re-design
• The study and feedback showed that there’s still huge scope left to conquer and that experience can never be perfected, it can only be improved
