User's couldn't find the "Water Manually" feature in the app.

About B-hyve

B-hyve is a smart sprinkler timer app that allows you to control or monitor your sprinklers from anywhere in the world with the convenience of your iOS and android smart device.

Problem

User's couldn't find the main feature of the app "Manual Watering" feature on the iOS and android mobile app.

Goals

To make it easier for B-hvye user's to find the "Manual Watering" feature.

Users

Home owners with Smart B-hyve Sprinker Timers.

Role

As the only ux designer in the team, I lead the design process for this project. I collaborated with a Product Owner and 3 developers to complete this project.

Tools

Sketch and InVision.

Firebase (analytics).

Constraints and Timeline

Do not remove the background image. Keep the same color scheme and icons.

Timeline: 4 months

User Interview Insights

We conducted in person user interviews with 12 users. During the interview we asked user's "To run a quick a manually watering program". We sat next to them and observed them, without helping them and 9 of the 12 users fail to complete the task.

User's couldn't find the "Manual Watering" feature which was hidden under the Home button.
The bottom navigation is confusing user's: The "Home button" allow user's to get to the Home screen and when you're view Home screen the "home" icon switches into a remote icon.
To access to the "Manual Watering" feature user's would have to tap twice the Home button.

When viewing the Home screen a home icon would switches into a remote icon and when viewing Calendar, Programs or Zones the remote icon would switches into a Home icon.

Design Progress

I designed a few sketches and presented to the team product owner and developers. During the presentation I did a voting activity: Allowing each member of the team to picked a design (ideas).

We end up with two favorite sketches. A possible solution was to place the "Water Manually" feature in the home screen next to the "Rain Delay" feature (Option B).

Other solution was to put the Water Manually under a FAB Floating button (option A).

Option AManual Watering icon with "Water Manually" label in the home screen under the + floating button.

Option BManual Watering icon with "Water Manually" label in the home screen

Usability Test

We conducted user testing with 10 Users: 6 Bhyve users and 4 non-Bhyve users. During user testing we gave users tasks to complete. One of the given tasks to measure the new design effectiveness was to run "Manual Watering".

We sat next to each user to observed them and without helping them 10 of the 10 users were able to complete the task on the Interface "Option B".

Usability Results

Watering Manually on Option B effectiveness is100%. Having the remote icon and a "Manual Watering" label under the remote icon is more effective and easy for Home owner's to find the feature.

Observation

I noticed that it took longer for non B-hyve user to find the feature on the new design.

Reflection

Looking back at this project, I think we could have done more to improve the visibility of this feature. For example improving the legibility of the label "Manual Watering" by removing the background image.

Another way to increase the visibility of this feature could be by adding a floating button and put the label and icon inside the button.

In addition, the app iconography requires more consistency.

Results

After launching the new design with the "Water Manually" feature in the home screen, we saw the feature usage increase over 300% a week per user.

Our app rating on iOS and android increase from 3.1 stars to 3.5 within 3 month of launching the new design.