Designing a website for online app reviews, rankings and news
What is apps.de?
The purpose of Apps.de is to provide users with expert and honest mobile app reviews, buying advice, rankings and price comparison, as well as publishing industry news, statistics and predictions. The majority of the content is created by freelancers with proficiency in new technology and mobile apps. The website also gives mobile app developers the opportunity to request reviews of their apps.
For the MVP, and after secondary research, three article categories were defined:
- Best Apps — articles that rank a number of mobile apps by their quality, within a specific category, field, industry or platform. For example, Top 10 Best Apps for Car Navigation.
- Reviews — articles that focus on a single app and provide in-depth information about it, based on thorough testing by experts.
- News — articles that aim to provide recent noteworthy information.
Competitive analysis
The competitive analysis involved creating competitor profiles in relation to marketing and design within the SWOT framework. This process helped me understand the current situation in the field and identify opportunities and challenges.
Opportunities
- Specialize in mobile apps since most review websites are dispersed.
- Offer app developers the option to submit their apps for review.
- Offer newsletter subscription to regular users.
- Use an advertising-based business model for generating profit.
Challenges
- Convey trustworthiness.
- Retain users.
- Use ads intelligibly and in a non-intrusive way.
Interviews
Three semi-structured interviews were conducted with people aged between 18 and 29. Based on the interviews, the following findings were gathered:
- Users do thorough online research before paying for an app.
- Even free apps are sometimes subject to user investigation due to fear of malware.
- Most of the time users start their research on Google.
- Users often download, quickly check, and delete free apps.
- Browsing both expert reviews and user ratings is common.
- Users often visit several websites before making a purchase decision.
- However, they don't read all the information available — they scan it.
Building empathy
User persona
Using the collected qualitative data from the interviews, the following user persona was created (Figure 1).
Primary user goal
Based on the conducted interviews, the primary user goal was defined as:
I want to be able to make fast and easy decisions regarding an app before deciding to download / buy / use it.
User journey map
After defining the user goal, a user journey map was created to visually illustrate the user flow through the website — beginning with the first contact and continuing through the process of interaction and long-term engagement (Figure 2).
Information architecture
Based on the competitive analysis, user interviews, and card sorting, the sitemap for Apps.de was defined (Figure 3).
Wireframing, prototyping & usability testing
As is apparent from the website's name, the design of the screens began with mobile first. This approach was also validated by competitor analysis and user interviews. Nevertheless, designs were scaled up for larger devices — namely tablet and desktop (Figure 8).
Low-fidelity prototyping
Using pen and paper, design iterations were conducted. The process went through a variety of design solutions (Figure 4). After some testing and internal discussions, a clear user flow was designed (Figure 5).
High-fidelity prototyping
After some paper prototyping improvement, a wireframe and clickable prototype were crafted using Adobe XD (Figures 6 & 7). Then, usability testing was conducted which revealed minor issues in the content design and some interactions. The necessary amendments were made.
Due to the nature of the website, it is expected that new content will be published on a regular basis. Hence, a Content Management System (CMS) had to be integrated (Figure 9).
In its MVP version, the content on the website will be published only by the admin(s). That is, the authors will send their articles to the admin, then the admin will proofread them, and ultimately upload them live. As the number of freelance authors increases, an Author account can be implemented so they can upload content on their own.
Visual design
The visual design was crafted by iterating from a mood board with different colors, fonts and visuals to finally creating a style guide (Figures 10 & 11).
Conclusion
Being a tech enthusiast myself, working on Apps.de was extraordinarily rewarding. I was able to try out some of the new Adobe XD features and streamline my design process. Because of time and resource constraints, I was not able to conduct more user interviews, which would have been beneficial.
Nonetheless, the design process on Apps.de is completed, and the project is in its implementation stage. The website will then be tested internally before its beta launch.