Improve UX before app release
Topicks, a new social network mobile application, went through an exciting development project.
Testeum assisted Topicks in improving the UX, UI, user retention and features from the app right before its release, with a comprehensive software QA based on a global reach with targeted users and environments.
Meet Topicks: the new social network application.
Topicks, founded is Australia, is a new mobile app for social networking.
The idea was that many people between the ages of 35 and 45 were abandoning social media because there were too many ads. They tend to create private groups to discuss points of interest. At some point, the idea came up to create an innovative social networking app, with two main principles: to be topic-oriented, instead of person-oriented, and to include benevolence by design, without the possibility to despise users’ comments.
Topicks challenges:
By the end of the development phase for the MVP, the goal was to have a workforce of people genuinely interested in testing the app, with global reach, and the ability to provide suggestions for improving both the UI and functional aspects, which is – generally speaking- impractical to set up.
The risk of not doing so was that the app would not suit its audience and would be quickly abandoned by users. That’s where Testeum comes in.
Testeum Solution:
The stakeholders in the project were Topicks, as the solution customer, their supplier for developing the software, providing a link to the release candidate of the application, and Testeum. We provided Topicks with a turnkey package including the test copywriting, the test campaign management, and the finalized test reports delivered to both the development team and Topicks.
After the test objectives editing, and the campaign launch, the platform just notifies the testers matching Topicks criteria, which really eases the connection with testers. Thus, very few resources are committed to running tests with Testeum, test reports are directly shared with developers, and the test report structure also facilitates communication between Topicks and the development team.
Finally, Topicks team can prioritize development tasks based on their vision.
Details:
Audience: 10 English speaking IOS users, from a dozen countries.
Conditions: The testers installed a screen recording app to share their actual journeys during the tests.
The alternatives to Testeum services are:
- Friends or family: get one’s relatives to test the release candidate.
- Pros: no money involved.
- Cons: biased, not necessarily targeted audience, little to no structure for feedback, turnaround time is uncertain.
- Focus group: use a marketing agency to gather people matching audience criteria.
- Pros: criteria match, feedback on NPS.
- Cons: expensive, feedback not structured.
- Development team fully responsible for the testing.
- Pros: efficient for functional testing.
- Cons: not targeted audience, biased for UI, costs.
Detailed benefits:
Fresh eyes from testers: real world feedback like end users would do.
Remarks from testers in real time reports, allowed to challenge the user interface.
Increased confidence in the application, resulted from this feedback from potential users.
Cheree, founder of Topicks
“I needed testing services with a global reach. Testeum services were seamless and very efficient.
It made the communication with development team much easier”
KPI’s
Costs:
530 AUD (315 €) for a turnkey offer.
Included :
- 2 hours of project management,
- 1 Test campaign for a 30 minutes journey done by 10 testers.
Duration:
12 days total: the request of 10 testers, and the conditions on screen recording increased the campaign duration, but with first feedback in less than 6 hours, development team could quickly take it into account.
Results:
21 bugs, including 12 suggestions on app UI or UX related features.
