Teux Deux: An App Revision Project

Objective

Teux Deux's creators succeeded in their mission to release a "simple, designy to-do app" with an experience as "simple as paper". But the app had limitations around longer term planning and calendar syncing. Our team objective was to increase functionality for long term task completion and setup or potentially reconcile deadlines and deliverables at the start of a new project.

Project Overview

Process

The Problem

The Teux Deux app operated well for simple to-do lists, but its functionality was limited around longer-term planning. What was wrong? If you wanted to have a date assigned to a task and have a category like “work” assigned as well, it was impossible! You had to choose between dates and categories. And if you wanted a friendly reminder to buy a birthday present in advance of your mom’s birthday, forget about it. You would have to look ahead in your timeline to your schedule to stay on top of things. It’s hard enough just to keep on task for the day, never mind looking weeks ahead.

Team Plan

Given that this was a group project, our first task was developing a team plan in order to decide how we would communicate with each other, make decisions, and resolve any conflicts.

Exploring the app

We spent time understanding how the app operates, looks, and feels to the user. All of our design decisions needed to be consistent with the style and minimalist functions that make Teux Deux unique and popular.

If we decided to build in lots of features, we would lose customers who were first attracted to the simple and intuitive interface.

Competitive Analysis

We first compared the Teux Deux app to Things, Wunderlist and Trello to note comparable features and limitations.

User Interviews

We performed six user interviews across a variety of comfort levels with to do lists. We recorded all relevant data and transferred to sticky notes for Affinity Mapping.

Affinity Mapping and Synthesis

We grouped interview data into a series of themes over an evolving process called Affinity Mapping.

We were able to identify three themes that most addressed our problem. Users said:

• I would like reminders

• I want to categorize tasks

• I want my to-do list and calendar together

Problem Statement

The user needs a better system for long term planning because the current system is geared toward daily to-do’s - it does not have reminders and cannot date tasks while also categorizing them.

Solution

We believe that by introducing reminders and tags, our users will be able to more efficiently and confidently manage their responsibilities. We will know this to be true when user satisfaction increases.

Proto-persona Development

Primary User: Power User

After synthesizing data from our Affinity Mapping exercise, we created two proto-personas for our main users; Power User and User Lite. Power User became our primary persona because of this user's need for more advanced features around categorization and notifications

Secondary User: User Lite

User Lite was a reflection of the users we interviewed who had some hesitation around using a to-do app. They prefer good old pencil and paper but needed some help staying on top of things. We kept User Lite in mind as a reminder to maintain the simple and intuitive interface.

Feature Prioritization

How were we able to decide what features to focus on?

We took the strongest themes from Affinity Mapping, incorporated data about what would be most beneficial to our Primary user, and then discussed feasibility based on available resources (time in our case). We plotted potential features on a chart to arrive at our top priorities for our Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

The team moved out of the exercise with a firm idea of what we wanted to incorporate into our revision: tagging and notifications.

Design Studio

We engaged in a rapid ideation exercise called design studio. We were forced to communicate ideas via rough sketches and brief explanations, and we could quickly critique, refine, and synthesize the best ideas to move into the design phase.

Wireframes

Getting ideas onto paper quickly gave us something we could get feedback on. We took pictures of basic sketches and imported the screen into Pop by Marvel so that we could do some basic usability tests. Were the operations clear? Did tapping things do what users expected? Early testing allowed us to make changes that would have been more difficult down the road.

Future State App Map

We received favorable results from our usability tests and we felt confident enough to proceed with building a medium-fidelity prototype to test further. We also developed an app map of new features nested into the existing app map.

User Flows

User Flow 1-Notifications

In order to visualize our design plan, we created user flows to communicate the path towards setting a notification. Rather than creating a new icon, we decided to build the notification setting function onto existing date setting function. Set a date, set a notification.

User Flow 2-Tagging and Filtering

We created a new icon for tagging in the task entry screen. With a few taps, a user can assign a tag and then filter by specific tags. Only want to see tasks you have to do for Nancy? No problem. We even created a shortcut where you can simply tap the tag dot to jump right to the filtered list.

Testing and Iterations

Usability testing revealed that users had a strong preference for seeing tags appear before a task, rather than after. This made more sense when we switched over to using colored dots instead of tags, as users could quickly see their categories at a glance.

Before After

We let go of the tag icons in favor of color-coded dots. Tags also have specific names associated with them, which would alleviate issues around accessibility or running out of colors.

Testing also revealed that users were confused about how to close out of the filtering view. We elected to darken the font and make the “X” more apparent. This decision was validated in later testing.

Future Considerations

Many users revealed in interviews that they would like some type of calendar syncing. One possible solution would be to simply display your calendar appointments in both the timeline and daily task views.

While our testing indicated favorable results around assigning and filtering colored dots, there could be some usability issues with tapping such a small location. Future iterations should explore alternative options.

Project Takeaways

The project was not without its challenges. We had an aggressive timeline of 2 weeks to make some dramatic improvements around functionality. The three of us had never worked together before, and the problem we were faced with was a very technical one. My technical skills around using Sketch and clearly explaining potential features proved to be an asset to the group. I was told that I was a patient team member and that my level of detail and commitment to solving the problem were unusually strong. Our group process around data synthesis, persona development, and feature prioritization proved to be a valuable experience in practicing the development of a minimum viable product.