Pinterest - UX Analysis
DESIGNER + RESEARCHER
Overview
This project taught me the importance of assigning critical features to the habits common to both iOS and Android. After analyzing six testers and their behaviors, we noticed they weren’t using the gestures unique to the application. While critical features must be intuitive, advanced features require external user education. Creating a community of superusers seems to be a successful external user education model.
Analyzing UI Problems
The biggest problem we found was that there was no nudge toward advanced features. For example all the users we observed needed a nudge to swipe left and right to navigate between pins. A simple nudge such as a directional arrow would make the user experience more efficient and more enjoyable.
Discovering Gestures
During the research phase of this project, we analyzed the various gestures used by Pinterest.
Primary Persona
We researched Pinterest user data and created a persona to fit our scenario. Creating personas, it allows us to understand and meet users’ needs.
Journey Map
Additionally we created a journey map to understand how people use and interact with Pinterest.
End Result
In order to tackle the problem of users not realizing that there are more gestures that they are not aware of, we decided that the best way to educate people was to take it from the beginning. We created a new on-boarding system that explained some of the gestures that where missing from the current on-boarding—the gestures that most older people were missing out on.
