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Investigating the Effects of Icons and Visuals in Interface Design
Introduction
Overview
THE CHALLENGE: Research on Comviq telecommunication company App, identify the problems, choose some of them and design solutions for it.
PROJECT DURATION: December 2022 , 4 weeks
MY ROLE: This was an individual project.
How did it begin?
When I came to Sweden in Oct 2021, one of the first things I got was a Comviq SIM card from a store for free and a 100 SEK charge for it. It was nice to put the SIM in my phone and BAM! It worked without any struggle. But later when I wanted to buy a charge and register the phone number through their App, the troubles started. The App was totally confusing for me. Therefore, I decided to make a study on it to see how I could improve the App experience.
I notice that the interface language is in Swedish only and even though there was an option in settings to change the language to English (which in a later update was omitted), it caused chaos because not everything’s language was changed.
Though there is a high demand for English language, the company does not respond to this request.
I was curious to see if there is a way to reduce the confusion for non-Swedish users, without changing language to English or their preferred language?
My Hypothesis: "Interface language for those who don’t know it makes confusion."
Double diamond – project planning
Planning
For this project, I employed the double diamond methodology to effectively organize the tasks and their respective timelines. Four weeks were meticulously planned, as illustrated in the accompanying chart.
Exploring
Competitors and rankings
I started by looking into the Comviq app page in google play website. I found a lot of interesting feedback by users there. I also checked the reviews in trustpilot.com for feedback and ratings on Comviq and some other competitors. Here are my findings at the time of doing this project:
Comviq has the rate 3.1 of 5 on google play and 1.4 of 5 on trustpilot.com
I compared Comviq to 4 other competitors (Vimla, Hallon, Telia and Telenor). According to Google play Comviq holds 4th place and on trustpilot.com it holds 5th place which is the lowest among these companies.
I realized that some areas of pain for users are around support, interface language, technical issues, login process and onboarding.
Comparing to the rankings of the competitors
Demand for English language
Most Feedbacks on Google play are around poor support and requests for an English version.
Here are some of reviews on Google play I found noticeable:
Interveiws
I conducted 5 interviews and a survey to learn and understand users’ needs more and gather qualitative and quantitative data.
I wanted to know to what extent interface language impacts the user experience of the app, therefore I prepared these questions and after contacting several persons and asking screener questions, I recruited 5 participants for an interview. Two Swedish persons and three persons who are new to Sweden and have minimum Swedish language skills.
Screening questions and interview questions
During the interview I let it go naturally by making some small changes in questions and the order of them as I wanted the participants to be open and comfortable.
Here are some of quotes from interviews:
"It was confusing when I started to use it for the first time."
"I always buy plans in the app with uncertainty."
"I feel more comfortable to buy from Comviq website instead of their App, because I can use google translate on the web."
Interview keynotes
Survey
For the survey I created a form using google forms and sent it by email to communities which I believe are diverse enough for this purpose.
Survey questions
1/3 of participants are Sweden native and 2/3 are from other nations:
Survey participants speeking language
And 95% have the English language skills:
Survey participants language diversity
After conducting the survey and cleaning extracted data, through 21 responses, it is obvious that language has a big impact on how much users feel comfortable when using the App. Almost every non Swedish user voted for a high level of difficulty for using the App. On the other hand Swedish users voted for the App as an easy using one but didn’t choose the highest level of ease of using the App.
ease of app usage among users
ease of app usage among users
Here are quotes from the survey in response to question number 4 and 6.
(Q4- Is there any other options or services you would like to see in this App? Q6- What is the best feature of Comviq App in your opinion?)
"I like it for paying invoices smoothly."
"I need to see more exact details about my current status."
"I would like for it to be in English. "
"I was never able to properly use it because there is only Swedish in it."
Keynote quotes from survey
Also from the survey result it is obvious that the most important needs of user in this App are:
Checking balance
Buying charge
Paying invoices
Comparing diffrent usage of the app
Synthesizing and choosing
I clustered all finding from secondary research, qualitative research and survey according to problem area in a miro board.
Clustering
Here I learned that there is paint points in following areas:
Checking Balance and status
Trust and feelings
Plans options
Buying and payment options
Login
Registering
Easiness to use
Language
Support
Also I used empathy map to get some insights from these data:
Empathy map
By clustering and combining findings, I noticed that there is quite opposite opinion about APP:
two notes of opposite opinion
By digging more into these notes, I understood that it is from two persons, one native Swedish and one without Swedish language skills. Also some of the users’ issues and problems related to their abilities to use Swedish language.
I got these insights from gathered data:
Insight #1: Interface language has a huge impact on users, it could help users to feel comfortable or confuse them.
Insight #2: Users with Swedish language skills have less problems
From the data Also I made these 3 personas to get a better understanding of users:
As there is a high demand for an English language interface in the App and the most negative feedback comes from users who do not have enough Swedish language skill, it seems the easiest way is to add English language in the settings options.
But I believe that an excellent interface apart from language could be used by anyone. How?
How might I create a better experience for the App users apart from interface language?
Solutions and prototyping
Possible solution:
Solution #1: Adding alternative interface languages.
Solution #2: Maximize using visuals and minimize using text in interface.
Although solution #1 seems easiest way to solve problem, solution #2 have more impact on all users. After all, adding all languages to an app needs a lot of effort both in design and maintenance, but icons and signs are international languages.
Although solution #1 seems easiest way to solve problem, solution #2 have more impact on all users. After all, adding all languages to an app needs a lot of effort both in design and maintenance, but icons and signs are international languages.
I conducted secondary research and studied more on UX Writing and texts in the interfaces, and got the idea that creating interfaces by relying more on visuals, icons and signs could lessen misunderstanding and difficulties for users. Visual information can be processed faster than text and is easier to remember. Text can be used as a compliment to give assurance to the user and for exact information.
So after all the study I came up with the idea to create a lo-fi prototype using visuals and minimize using text in the interface and test it to see if the user can do tasks or not.
Here is the icon set I prepared for using in designing this app. I replaced navigation bar icons with some more understandable icons which are more usual like the shopping cart icon instead of fuel pump icon.
icon set
Here is the Gauges I designed to display the user’s service status in the app
Designed gauges
Lo-fi prototype
The pages that I made major changes.
Test and Iteration
After preparing the Lo-Fi prototype I tested it with some users and by getting feedback I made some small tuning and finalized the prototype.
I had replaced the home icon with the 4 squares icon to show this page is about to choose the product which the user already registered within the app, but I learned from this usability testing that the 4 squares icon is not understandable for the user so I replaced it with a home icon. Also I brought out the profile menu into the navigation bar as users failed to find it easily and I got the desired result. And the same good result was for replacing the tanka icon with a shopping cart icon.
Home menu icon replacement
Bringing out the profile menu
Here are all the pages of final prototype
Feedback
"Simple, clean and understandable."
Ahmad, 21"I can simply figure out my needs in this App!"
Johann, 28"Easy to get used to, Quickly see details of service usage and remaining in a glance"
Nadia, 33Here are 2 sample of the App pages in compare to my design:
Takeaway
By this project I got a better understanding of the impact of visuals and UX writing in design although I focused more on visuals.I learned that by using icons and visuals I can use the limited space much better and also users will learn how to use the service much better and quicker. But also I learned choosing the right visual or icon is crucial.
Comviq app has strong abilities to respond to user needs, but it needs a major amount of work on design improvement.
Studies have shown that incorporating icons and visuals can have a positive impact on user experience. Icons and visuals can enhance user comprehension, memory retention, and increase efficiency when completing tasks.
In a study conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group, users were able to complete tasks 34% faster when interfaces included icons compared to text-only interfaces. Additionally, users were found to have higher recall rates of information presented through icons and visuals compared to text.
Another study found that icons can aid in improving website navigation and reducing cognitive load. Users were able to locate information faster when icons were used alongside text-based navigation, and icons were found to be more effective in representing categories than words.
Overall, using icons and visuals can improve user experience by simplifying information presentation, aiding in navigation, and enhancing recall rates. Incorporating these elements into interface design can lead to increased user satisfaction and overall product success.
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