Upsprout User Testing
A Quick Recap and Project Update
I am Bailee Fox, a Digital Media major at Maryville University in St. Louis, Missouri. I am enrolled in my second Capstone course, where I must complete my final project to showcase the skills I have learned at Maryville and throughout my academic career. For my Capstone project, I have furthered my concept of a gardening app that intends to teach gardening techniques to all and provide food to those in need.
I am nearing the end of my second capstone course and have completed my app design and social media advertising for Upsprout. I am wrapping up any final adjustments and additions that benefit my app and social media advertising, which is done with the help of a select group of people that helped me complete some user testing.
Why User Testing?
User testing is essential for app design because it provides valuable insights into how real users interact with the app. By observing users navigating through the app, encountering challenges, and giving feedback, designers can identify usability issues, discover areas for improvement, and better understand user preferences and behaviors. This iterative process helps refine the app’s design, enhances user satisfaction, minimizes errors, and ultimately leads to a more user-friendly and flourishing app.
My user testing focused on the navigation, any challenges that might occur, and getting the judgment of individuals who would be potential users of the app.
To conduct my user tests, I devised a list of essential questions to ask a small group of individuals that enjoy gardening, volunteering, and using apps to help them in their daily lives.
The 10 Questions Asked
1. Can you comprehend what the app is about based on the initial screens? Would onboarding screens with information help you understand the app concept?
2. After doing the general onboarding, take a look at the home screen. What is your overall impression of the screen?
3. On a scale from 1–10, with one being easy and ten being difficult, how easy did you feel navigating the app?
4. What is confusing to you concerning navigation, features, etc?
5. What features do you find most interesting about the app?
6. Are there any features that should be added or taken away?
7. Would you use the app?
8. Is there anything in the app that did not function correctly?
9. Does the overall style of the app work well with its intended use?
10. Describe in a few words your overall experience and impression of the app.
I had three individuals gracious enough to help me conduct user testing of my app design. My first tester was Tyler, 23 years old, a friend who uses apps daily and has some volunteer work experience. The second tester is my friend Zach, 22 years old, who uses apps daily and has a personal garden. My last tester was my mother, Tawniece, 44 years old, who has a garden, does volunteer work, and is the primary audience for Upsprout.
Conducting The User Tests
For each of my interviewees, I requested that they download the Adobe XD app to view the app and how it is intended on their smartphone screens. Each had an iPhone, so it was formatted correctly to their device.
Get Bailee Fox’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I recorded each of their responses to my questions, and I provided them below:
1. Can you comprehend what the app is about based on the initial screens? Would onboarding screens with information help you understand the app concept?
Tyler: This is a gardening app social media platform. More onboarding screens would help me understand what the app is right when you sign up.
Zach: I can tell what it is about by the contents of the home screen. I could see it being helpful to add those initial screens so I can have some understanding on how to navigate the app and what is included.
Tawniece: I can tell the app is about plants because of the home screen’s title and content. Additional screens may help me understand the contents of the app better, but it is self explanatory as of now.
2. After doing the general onboarding, take a look at the home screen. What is your overall impression of the screen?
Tyler: It does its job well; the weather screen helps, and it has a search bar which is what most people will do. This helps find people immediately. Updates are essential, and recommendations of gardens and opportunities are helpful for the home screen.
Zach: I like this screen because the updates are there; I like the colors and the use of blue. There should be more emphasis on the MyGarden feature on the home screen.
Tawniece: I like that this screen has the location and the weather of where I am at. I enjoy notifications of my progress and the neighborhood gardens in my area, which connects me to people in the area and volunteer opportunities all available near me because that is something I am interested in.
3. On a scale from 1–10, with one being easy and ten being difficult, how easy did you feel navigating the app?
Tyler: On a scale from 1–10, it is a 2 for being easy so easy to navigate.
Zach: On a scale of 1–10, it is a 4. The MyGarden calendar caught be off guard because of how similar it looks in appearance to the other pages.
Tawniece: On a scale of 1–10, it’s a 1. The app is very easy to navigate and there are many ways to access things, such as the hamburger menu.
4. What is confusing to you concerning navigation, features, etc?
Tyler: There is nothing super confusing; the only thing that might be confusing is the communities and what happens when you add to it.
Zach: My only thing is that the hamburger menu is redundant. Other than that the navigation is simple and easy to follow.
Tawniece: How do I post a picture? How do I share it with people on the app? I also would like to know how to add daily tasks.
5. What features do you find most interesting about the app?
Tyler: It’s cool that you can go so in-depth with each plant you grow, being able to take a photo of the tomatoes can help track the growth. I also enjoy the volunteer feature since that is what I would use the most.
Zach: I like the community board aspect and the community garden aspect. Having a community tab to communicate with garden members is essential.
Tawniece: I like the fact that I can talk to people in the gardens! I can also locate people in my community, check out plants in different gardens, and share ideas.
6. Are there any features that should be added or taken away?
Tyler: I don’t think there is anything that should be added or taken away. I think all the features are there to help the users, and there isn’t anything I can think of to help it.
Zach: I don’t think any features need to be added or removed. This is a pretty developed app that gives you a lot of different and essential features. The only thing I don’t like is the hamburger menu.
Tawniece: A pop-up screen to share the photos should be added!
7. Would you use the app?
Tyler: Yes!
Zach: Yes!
Tawniece: Yes!
8. Is there anything in the app that did not function correctly?
Tyler: Fix the tomato arrow on my plants page, doesn’t link. Add the daily task pop up screen. Community Tasks and Daily Tasks button checkmarks aren’t working. Add a Volunteer Match screen so people can click on a screen.
Zach: Add a back arrow to the Garden Calendar. The community garden upsprout social screen, you can’t click the task bar at the bottom.
Tawniece: I don’t see anything in the app that doesn’t function correctly.
9. Does the overall style of the app work well with its intended use?
Tyler: Yes, it looks aesthetically pleasing for gardening.
Zach: Yes, I like the colors, especially the blue.
Tawniece: Yes, the app is very appealing to the eye, and I enjoy the colors and layout because it is easy to navigate.
10. Describe in a few words your overall experience and impression of the app.
Tyler: It is a very nice app to keep track of my plants and keep track of the community surrounding gardening.
Zach: This is a good experience; I think the overall app style is cool.
Tawniece: This app would be helpful for older gardeners especially and a good platform for community gardeners to communicate through.
Conclusion
The findings of my user testing were extremely helpful in finishing the final touches of my app design and discovering what opinions the users had about the app overall. Many of the decisions I had made in the past had paid off, especially with the social media feature and home screen. The app's aesthetics and layouts were also things that the users commented on that were working very well in the design. Many things did not work well in my app design, such as some of the prototyping features and features that should be included in the app design. Some prototyping features were not there or messed up during my design process, such as the navigation bar not working on the Community Garden Upsprout Social screen and some boxes not clicking. I was surprised by my tester, Zach, who was fairly critical of the hamburger menu used throughout my app design when I had a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. I have a valid reason for its use, specifically because they struggled to navigate to the Volunteer screen, which is not featured in the bottom navigation bar and is only on the Home screen.
Moving forward, I will add some final adjustments to my app design. I will specifically focus on adjusting and adding more prototyping, adding a daily task screen that can be clicked so the user can add their tasks, possibly changing the aesthetic of the My Calendar screen, and adding more content to make it more distinct compared to the other screens.
Overall, I am ecstatic by the results of my User Testing, which will aid me in completing the final touches of my capstone project.
