Emma Tulsky - Moovz Case Study

Reinventing the moving experience with end to end digital product design

Updating the the moving experience to optimize time management and reduce stress was a much needed challenge for someone to take on. I tackled this by using user experience research, ui design, and human-centered thinking to create Moovz, an end to end application that helps the every day person stay organized during a move.

Role: Solo UX/UI Designer

Timeframe: 4 months

Skills:

User Research, usability testing, ui design, branding, accessibility and inclusion, and information architecture

User research, usability testing, ui design, branding, accessibility and inclusion, and information architecture

Tools:

Figma, Figjam, Optimal Workshop, Zoom, and sketching

Tools: Figma, Figjam, Optimal Workshop, Zoom, and Sketching

The Process:

Learnings & Next Steps

The Context

I recently moved to the USA from Australia and found it to be quite a stressful process. I wanted to find out if other people felt this way about moving and what their major stressors were. With that information, I wanted to put together a solution that would help reduce some of the stress of moving.

The Problem

100% of people who move experience stress during the move. How Might We reduce the stress of moving with an easy to use digital product?

The Objective

Use user research to uncover the root causes of the stress people are feeling during their move and understand how people are currently staying organized and what tools they are using. Based off of the research, design a product that will address users main stressors and help them have a more organized moving process.

The Solution

The TL;DR

Using empathy and user research I was able to uncover that users who were moving or had moved recently struggled with staying organized and felt stressed trying to keep track of all that needed to be done, especially when they felt they had a short moving timeline. Using this information I was able to develop and use a user persona to create task flows that were most significant to users and addressed their main problems. From there, I put together low, mid, and high fidelity prototypes of each task flow within the app and tested them with users. This resulted in a 100% task completion rate as well as several users saying that they wished this solution existed when they were moving because they found it to be helpful, clean and intuitive.

Jump to Solution Prototype

The whole process

Empathize

Empathize

Investigating what moving resources already exist

Looking into what resources are already around using SWOT analysis gave me a better idea of what was missing and what is available for people to use. Additionally, it opened my eyes to a gap in the market as there are not many resources purely designated for people who are trying to stay organized during a move. This helped me get an understanding of why people may be becoming quite stressed during this process and potentially be turning to pen and paper to keep track of things.

Conducting user interview

During the user interview process, my main goal was to learn what the most stressful part about moving is so that I could understand how to alleviate some of that stress.

I interviewed 5 participants who had all moved within the last year and encompassed both long-distance moves and local moves. All interviews were conducted via Zoom.

During the user interview process, my main goal was to learn what the most stressful part about moving is so that I could understand how to alleviate some of that stress.

I interviewed 5 participants who had all moved within the last year and encompassed both long-distance moves and local moves. All interviews were conducted via Zoom.

Affinity mapping

From the interview I created an affinity diagram, grouping common themes together. The below categories were the most prominent categories and the ones that i chose to focus on.

Stress

Most stressed buying and selling at the same time

Felt stressed during the packing stages

Packing organization

Throwing thing into boxes at the end of packing

Packed room by room at first

Time

Had a quick moving timeframe

Finite time at the old place, infinite time at the new place

Had assistance with move

Paid a moving company to help move things

Moved small things themselves

Working with others

Had a quick moving timeframe

Finite time at the old place, infinite time at the new place

View the full affinity map here

Key research findings

Everyone felt stressed at some point during the moving process, especially when it came down to the wire
Most people organized themselves with lists and set milestones using pen and paper
People tried to stay organized by packing room by room
When it came closer to the move date several people found themselves just throwing things in boxes.
A lot of people unpacked the bathroom first
Many people mentioned that movers were helpful.
Some mentioned that they took different roles in the move and felt less stressed because of it.

Define

Define

How Might We help people moving feel more organized and less rushed while packing for a move?

How Might We help people with short moving timeframes feel less overwhelmed about their moving timelines?

User Persona

With a better understanding of users and their challenges I put together a user persona to represent a person who may be experiencing the same things while moving. This reference allowed me to empathize with the users at every point of the decision making process.

Ideate

Ideate

Brainstorming features/ Card sorting

After brainstorming and prioritizing features that I wanted to appear in my moving app I conducted a card sorting exercise. This unmoderated card sorting exercise was conducted on Optimal Workshop. This gave me a better understand of how users mentally associate content and allowed me to start putting together the information architecture of the app.

Dashboard

Messages

Days until move

Today

Schedule

Bookings

Add Appointment

Appointments

Packing

Items

Bedroom

Packed

Boxes

Profile

About

Privacy

Settings

Resources

Movers

Help

Donation Centers

Tips and Tricks

Checklist

Utilities to change

Add Task

To Dos

Tasks

Address changes

Dashboard

Messages

Days until move

Today

Schedule

Bookings

Add Appointment

Appointments

Packing

Items

Bedroom

Packed

Boxes

Profile

About

Privacy

Settings

Resources

Movers

Help

Donation Centers

Tips and Tricks

Checklist

Utilities to change

Add Task

To Dos

Tasks

Address changes

Site Map

Task Flows

Using the site map and my user persona I developed 3 users flows that would be most relevant for a user using this solution. From those user flows I was able to pick out a “happy path” in each which created the task flows

Prototype

Prototype

Low-fidelity Prototyping

With the assistance of the task flows and user persona, I sketched up several options for how users might navigate through the app and got a sense of what the screens should look like. I really wanted to prioritize familiarity and ease of use so that users would not have to put much effort into learning how to use this application.

Adding an appointment
Adding a task
Packing a box

Adding an appointment

Adding a task

Packing a box

Mid-fidelity Prototyping

Using a combination of the low fidelity prototyping it was time to put together a mid-fidelity prototype.

Calendar Page

Task Page

Packing Page

Branding

I took a step back to imagine what I wanted the brand of this app to say to people and decided I wanted to give off a clean, calm, simplistic and fun vibe. With those brand values in mind I drafted up a style tile to go with my designs and named the product Moovz.

High-fidelity Prototyping

Using my mid-fidelity and the branding, I put together a functional high-fidelity prototype to test on users.

Calendar Page

Task Page

Packing Page

Interact with the prototype here

Test

Test

Usability Testing

Time to go back to the people. This was the moment of truth, I wanted to understand how people would interact with the Moovz app and if they would find it helpful. In addition, I was looking for feedback from users that would help improve their experience and make things a little easier for them. With that goal in mind I ran each participant through 3 tasks that were laid out in the task flows created above.

Key usability testing findings

Task 1: Adding an appointment

All participants used the shortcut on the dashboard
Many people wanted to add the date and time before the appointment title
Some people had trouble finding the save button

Task 1: Adding an appointment

All participants used the shortcut on the dashboard
Many people wanted to add the date and time before the appointment title
Some people had trouble finding the save button

Task 2: Adding a task to a checklist

All participants used the shortcut on the dashboard
All clicked the list bar not where the title of the list was
Majority of people indicated they would have missed the tiny add a person button if it were not part of the instructions.

Task 2: Adding a task to a checklist

All participants used the shortcut on the dashboard
All clicked the list bar not where the title of the list was
Majority of people indicated they would have missed the tiny add a person button if it were not part of the instructions.

Task 3: Packing a box

Some people struggled to find the packing page to get started
There was some confusion around the words “from” and “to” and what it indicated
Someone commented that it would be nice to be able to add your avatar to a box for some ownership over your packing

Task 3: Packing a box

Some people struggled to find the packing page to get started
There was some confusion around the words “from” and “to” and what it indicated
Someone commented that it would be nice to be able to add your avatar to a box for some ownership over your packing

Success metrics

100%

Completion Rate

Error Rate

1.4 avg

Difficulty rating

(1- very simple, 5 - very difficult)

Difficulty rating

(1- very simple, 5 - very difficult)

Iterate

Iterate

Prioritizing revisions

I decided to focus my iterations on usability. Several of the revisions were simple to do and had a high impact for the users. Some examples were updating the “List” bar to be clickable anywhere and making sure the save button was visible even if the user scrolled down the page. Another essential revision was adding a “pack a box” shortcut to the dashboard so that it was easily found as well as making that area of the dashboard more consistent. And finally changing the wording of the “to” and “from” to make it easier to understand for the user.

Revisions in action

This is just an example of how the wording was updated to make things more clear for users.

Interact with the prototype here

Version 1

Version 2

Interact with the prototype here

Learnings & next steps

Key learnings

Test early and often. Usability testing can be done even at the low-fidelity stage of building a product.
Understand that my assumptions are just that assumptions. I think that things can be greatly improved once you recognize that and understand that there is always room for improvement and iteration.

Test early and often. Usability testing can be done even at the low-fidelity stage of building a product.
Understand that my assumptions are just that assumptions. I think that things can be greatly improved once you recognize that and understand that there is always room for improvement and iteration.

Next steps

Allow users to add their avatar to the box packing flow so they can take some ownership over the boxes they packed.
Build out an onboarding flow and prototype so that people get a better sense of how the app is set up. also include some instructional screens to help users in the future.
Add a flow to the resources area so people can see the helpfulness of being able to find a local donation center, where to get packing supplies, and some moving tips and tricks.

Allow users to add their avatar to the box packing flow so they can take some ownership over the boxes they packed.
Build out an onboarding flow and prototype so that people get a better sense of how the app is set up. also include some instructional screens to help users in the future.
Add a flow to the resources area so people can see the helpfulness of being able to find a local donation center, where to get packing supplies, and some moving tips and tricks.

Check out more of my work

About

Resume

Get in touch at emma.tulsky@gmail.com

About

Resume

Get in touch at emma.tulsky@gmail.com

About

Resume

Get in touch at emma.tulsky@gmail.com