Guru Mobile App
Platform
IOS & Android
Date
March - Feb 2020
The problem
Traveling sales agents are constantly on the go and need easy access to product knowledge during their sales pitches. Before our mobile app launch, they had to open our limited and clunky mobile site or open their laptops to get any knowledge from Guru. They need to be able to search for knowledge, as well as view and share Cards (our word for documents) easily from their phones.
We were not sure whether or not a mobile app would be popular with our users, so we decided to start with an experiment. Our goal was to design simple iOS and Android apps and test its impact on adoption. We then expanded upon the mobile app based on customer feedback and continue to do so.
Project journey
The Guru mobile app started out as a hack-a-thon project. I had an interest in doing more mobile work, so I volunteered to join the team as their sole designer. The mobile app hack-a-thon project was so well received that it was added to the product roadmap and I was named the lead designer on the project.
What I did
Initial Research and Discovery, Brainstorming and Sketching, Low Fidelity Wireframes, Prototyping and Usability Testing, and Visual Design and Handoff
Initial research and discovery
This project originally started out as an investigation to see if adding a mobile app to our line of products would improve the experience for our current sales customers and as well as attract new prospects.
We started off by conducting a series of interviews with various sales customers to better understand their needs within a mobile app. This allowed us to decide where to start with our MVP. Our goal was to design a simple mobile app and test its impact on adoption without committing too much time or resources to the project.
“There’s a ton of functionality that I’d love to see in a mobile app... I know for me, every time I try to use the mobile site, I close it and pull out my computer because there just isn’t any functionality. Bringing the mobile site closer to parity with the chrome extension would be ideal.”
“The mobile site is extremely limited. I’d love a way to answer with an existing Card.”
“GURU is awesome, but needs a mobile version for me to “study” at home.”
Competitive analysis
I performed competitive analysis on various sales enterprise applications as well as enterprise and consumer facing Wikis. This helped me better understand mobile app best practices around searching and surfacing information, as well as sharing that information out to others.
Wireframes and feedback
Then I made sketches and wireframe mockups of my ideas. The designs were intentionally simple because the functionality we decided to incorporate was narrow. The first round of designs only included being able to search for Cards, open and read Cards, and share Cards out by copying the link or the Card content.
I presented my designs to my design team as well as the Lead PM and Lead Engineer on my team. This feedback helped me to refine my designs and create a click through prototype of the app to usability test internally. I value getting feedback early and often.
Internal usability testing
Given the experimental nature of the project and strong desire from leadership for an accelerated timeline to ship an MVP, we did not test the mobile designs on our customers. Fortunately, the customer experience and sales teams at Guru are heavy Guru users. They explored and performed a series of tasks with my click through prototype of the mobile app, offering important feedback along the way. This helped me to identify usability issues and pain points within the designs.
“I’d love it if I could also be able to see my Collections in the app.”
“I wasn’t exactly sure what that sharing icon meant initially.”
“I like that it’s simple and straightforward. It’s easy to find my cards.”
Initial design handoff
With the insight and data from the accelerated research phase, I was able to refine my designs and create visuals. I always include detailed functional specs within my handoff so that the engineers can have a clear sense of what they need to do without needing to read long functional documentation.
I value an extremely close relationship with my developers and work to make sure that they feel comfortable coming to me when they have any design questions or feasibility issues.
This project presented a challenge in that we were working with outsourced developers who were unfamiliar with the product. I made a concentrated effort to communicate early and often in order to preserve the integrity of my designs. I scheduled weekly check-ins to identify or tweak any discrepancies between the designs and what was built. In doing so, I was able to support the developers effectively and prevent delays to our implementation timeline.
Success metrics
Once we launched the apps we were able to start monitoring their usage. We found that many more teams used the iOS app than the Android app. We didn’t get the usage and adoption rates that we hoped for, and we got a lot of feedback that the apps didn’t have enough functionality to be useful. We decided to continue to add features to the app in order to see if additional functionality would improve usage metrics.
Iteration
Based on customer feedback, we decided to incorporate more robust navigation into the app. Originally, users could only search for Cards on the app, but through the web app many customers find Cards using our foldering structure that is organized into Collections and Boards. We added this navigation into the app to allow users to more easily find the Cards they’re looking for.
Looking to the future
I collaborated on a design hack-a-thon project with my fellow product designers to design a future phase of the Guru mobile app geared toward consumers. We explored a community oriented wiki experience with libraries of content and extensive reader metrics. We also incorporated the ability to have private Cards and libraries for users and their friends and family
