Main project

Part 1: Source an appropriate Company/Business

Time for the main project. My task is to find a website or app that has a Ux problem that I have to solve. My choice is the “My Vodafone” app. The owner of this application is Vodafone which is the providers of telecommunications services.

Vodafone is Ireland’s leading mobile communications operator with 2.4 million customers.

Since entering the Irish market in May 2001 Vodafone has made significant investments in its network. Vodafone is the single biggest investor in new technology in the Irish telecoms industry annually, with more than €900 million spent building and maintaining its network.
Such innovation means Vodafone Ireland has been the first to launch a number of leading-edge technologies onto the Irish market.

These include opening Ireland’s first 3G network in May 2003, delivering mobile broadband speeds of up to 21Mbps through HSPA+ technology in February 2010, and more recently the launch of HD Voice which enables the clearest voice call experience yet. Vodafone Ireland secured the largest allocation of mobile spectrum available to the market in 2011. This facilitated the fastest possible 4G rollout and allowed Vodafone to deliver wider coverage and enhanced speeds to customers nationwide.

Delivering 4G services has been a key element of Vodafone’s nationwide network enhancement programme, bringing 4G data everywhere there are currently voice services. This programme has already positively impacted on customers and businesses across the country who can now access high-speed data on Ireland’s leading network. Vodafone Ireland is part of Vodafone Group, one of the world’s largest mobile communications companies by revenue, with approximately 403 million customers in its controlled and jointly controlled markets as of 30 September 2013.

Vodafone currently has equity interests in over 30 countries across five continents and more than 50 partner networks worldwide.

Vodafone

To find out what reviews customers have, I’ve decided to visit Trustpilot on the website. I was surprised that the company which has 2.4 million customers has only one star.

The company loses trust in clients. One person complains about the network, another on customer service and broadband. Of 149 people, 84% are dissatisfied with Vodafone. Then I looked into the Google Play to check the reviews of My Vodafone app. As we can see below, the clients are not satisfied with this application. They have problems logging in, topping up the account, providing incorrect information.

When I started to check this application I did not have problems logging in, I do not know about top up, but I encountered a different issue, and it was a roaming site that directed me to a website that was not responsive, and I had to zoom the page to change the roaming plan.

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In my opinion, this should not happen because it is a phone app and should not send us to the website. The roaming plan selection should be available in the app. I think this is a Ux problem and I will focus on it.

Part 2: User Testing to identify project pain points and UX issues

In this task, I will test two users who will help me to define the pain points of the project and Ux problems. For this purpose, I will use the app on the phone which will record what the users are doing and what they are thinking about during the test. 

Mladen User Testing

My first tester was Mladen. At the beginning of the test everything went well but when Mladen pressed the button “Change my roaming plan” the problem started. The tester will start to complain that the application has moved it to the website and must zoom the page which slows down the use of the app, did not know whether it is an information page or to change roaming plan, because it did not see the buttons. Mladen was not happy with the use of this App.

Thomas User Testing

The Thomas test was also at the beginning without problems but when he had to change the roaming plan, he had to zoom in on the page. He noticed that the page looks different than the previous one, and it was not responsive. Thomas found the buttons to change the roaming plan and changed the plan successfully.

Part 3 – Empathy Maps & User Personas

Empathy Maps

The empathy map is a simple technique used to profile users. It helps us to better understand what people think and feel, focus on their experiences and needs. It allows us to go beyond the typical, demographic characterisation of our clients. Based on recorded user tests, I began to create empathy maps. 
For this, I used the temple Vizzlo.

After creating empathy maps, I inferred five pain points of the app. The application sends us to the website, the website is not responsive, you can not find the button to change roaming, you need to zoom site, the app loading slow, roaming page differently designs and roaming page have lots of data. And that helped me to find out what I need to fix in this application. So the app can not send us to the website, I need to correct the navigation on the site to change the roaming plan, make less data on roaming plan page make more visible buttons on the site to change the roaming plan.

User Personas

User Personas are portraits of our clients. We know what they are called, what they do during the day, what their needs are, how they dress, etc. The idea is that based on data on sociodemographic characteristics of clients, their interests and any other information, build something like a real character who is also our client, and therefore a typical representative of the target group to which we direct our actions. To create persona I used temple from Xtensio.

My first persona is Andrew student from Dublin. He is living in a small apartment with a colleague. His life is full of studies and party. Use social media several times a day to communicate with friends and family. He likes applications with the clean interface and useful options. Get frustrated when the app works slowly or doesn’t meet his requirements.

The next Persona is Rebecca. She is a foreign service officer who travels 4-8 times a month to work. She has a specific region where she goes and visits the same cities. She is frustrated by the de fact that regardless of how often she makes a similar trip she spends a lot of time changing the roaming plan. She expects her roaming solutions to be organised as she is.

The last persona is Rachel is an energetic person who wants to get involved in the community. She wants to try new things but never has time for it. After retiring from work, she spends more time on leisure activities and volunteer. She would like to keep herself busy so she can ease into her retirement life.
Rachel likes to keep in touch with her and her family, as well as meeting new people. She has a basic knowledge of technology and uses. She would still like to learn more about the technology because she thinks it would help make her life easier.

After creating these personas, the next stage will be to create a prototype app that will meet the expectations of users.

Part 4 – Prototype of the final solution.

My task is to improve the app “My Vodafone” and especially the roaming plan page because they’re all the complications start with sending us to the website, zooming the page, no one knows where are the buttons to change the roaming plan. So I will try to fix it. I will use the online application, Proto. 

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Time for the next user testing this time will be the prototype of the site.

Prototype User Testing

As you could see the whole test went through successfully. The roaming page has the look of what it should be, you do not need to zoom in to read what is written, buttons to change roaming are more visible, after changing the plan we have message  that the plan was changed successfully, and on top On the roaming website, we can see what plan we have. Now I will present a link to my project where you can see how the prototype works, just remember not all the buttons work especially on the My account page.

My Vodafone prototype roaming page.

Part 5 – Proposal

Vodafone you are the company that has 2.4 million clients in Ireland. You’ve been in the market since 2001. Through all these years you are trying to improve the network and be a leader in Ireland. But you have a few disadvantages. When I did research, I noticed that you lose trust in your clients, and that’s because of poor communication with the customer when he has problems with your product, it’s about customer service, and you have to change it for the good of the company, and it’s only about the company in general.

My problem is your app “My Vodafone” on which I focused the most. Feedback from customers shows that they have problems logging in, the application does not show correct information, etc. While checking your app I did not have a problem logging in, but I encountered a different problem. When we want to change the roaming plan, the app sends us to a website that is not responsive. We need a zoomed page to read about roaming. The buttons to change roaming are so hard to see.

• the app sends us to the website.


• the website is not responsive. 


• we need a zoomed page.


• the buttons are hard to see.

We need to solve these problems to improve the use of this app and make our clients happy. From this occasion I will present you my solution which is to collect the most important information from the website about roaming plan, the site must be mobile friendly, the app cannot send us to the website, everything must be happening in the app and buttons must be more visible.

• most important information about roaming.


• mobile friendly.


• the app don’t send us to the website.


• the buttons are more visible.

As you can see above, this solution looks better than in the current app. I invite you to take a closer look at this project here:

My Vodafone prototype roaming page.

PowerPoint Presentation