Starling Report

Created for General Assembly by Dave Riedy, Gary Henkle, Konstantin Ficklscherer

Discover events and surprises right as they happen.

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Executive Summary

Twitter has a large user base. The related app Starling we’re creating leverages this fact as a way to engage in a real-time conversation about events and news items that are actionable and useful. This is an extension of Twitter’s current use and adding the location-based contextual alerts is a step forward. Twitter has a global presence which allows for the possibility of expanding this functionality into other cities/markets. NYC is the perfect test case with a dense population and high technology engagement, however, the market can be expanded to other cities throughout the world in the future.

Based on our user research, which included a user survey of 27 respondents, 10 user interviews, a total of 12 open and closed card sorts, and 10 user tests through 3 iterations of prototyping, we conclude:

There are two types of users A) The Consumer, who likes aggregated information laid out in a simple interface, and

B) The Contributor, who likes to share their personal tastes or promote their organization’s content.

Within these types, there are varying degrees of use ranging from the casual user to the power user. Both of these types have agreed that Twitter’s user interface is extremely easy and pleasant to use. We’ve designed Starling to appeal to and accommodate a wide spectrum of users within this range.

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For the Contributor, we’ve created a user flow in our app that allows them to contribute content via text or photo that will alert other users through a push notification of events and news items relevant to them.

For the Consumer, we’ve created a user flow that takes them right to the content relevant to them.

Time + Location = Helpfulness emerged from the development phase as a formula for success, so we created features for Starling around real-time alerts to events happening in proximity to the user’s location.

The focus of our main page would be a map of the local area with pins identifying activity based on a limited categories, including Events, Free, Sales, News, and NY Moments, a channel for New Yorkers to broadcast surprising and delightful activity unique to New York City.

During the brainstorming phase, we considered a design in which users would only submit photos to Starling’s feed. This idea was abandoned when we realized the activity users would broadcast through the app would be restricted if there was no way to photograph it.

One important determination we had from the start was to include features from Twitter in our design that would continue to appeal to users which were also relevant to our goals. These include the List function, where our feed resembles the Twitter feed, and the familiar Home, Tweet and Settings icons on the footer.

If users can share and consume content easily based on time and place, then we have done our job.

Executive Summary

Problem Statement01

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Problem Statement

New York City has so much going on it’s impossible to know about everything, even if you wanted to. What is needed is an app that allows fellow NYers to share information about things happening right now. Information they can use.

About Twitter02

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Twitter Overview

The following is a short synopsis of Twitter the brand and company.

+ Twitter is an online social networking service founded in 2006.

+ As of December 2014, Twitter has more than 500 million users, out of which more than 284 million are active users.

+ Some 23% of online adults currently use Twitter, a statistically significant increase compared with the 18% who did so in August 2013. Twitter is particularly popular among those under 50 and the college-educated. Compared with late 2013, the service has seen significant increases among a number of demographic groups: men, whites, those ages 65 and older, those who live in households with an annual household income of $50,000 or more, college graduates, and urbanites.

+ In the third quarter of 2014 Twitter generated 85 percent of its revenue from mobile advertising. Twitter’s advertising revenue rose 109 percent compared to the year-ago period, while its “data licensing and other revenue” category was up an even more impressive 171 percent.

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Our Opportunity

Twitter has a large user base. The related app we’re creating leverages this fact as a way to engage in a real-time conversation about events and news items that are actionable and useful. This is an extension of Twitter’s current use and adding the location-based contextual alerts is a step forward. Twitter has a global presence which allows for the possibility of expanding this functionality into other cities and markets. NYC is the perfect test case with a dense population and high technology engagement.

Platform Selection The idea is to enable people out on the streets of New York City to share information that is immediately useful and requires mapping and camera functionality, hence a native phone app is the most suitable platform. We are focussing on iOS as it has a large user base and because its familiar interface and guidelines provide an ideal starting point.

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HOME

FIND PEOPLE

HOME

SEARCH

NOTIFICATIONS

TWEET

MESSAGES ME

SETTINGS ADD ACCOUNTS

EDIT PROFILE

TWEETS MEDIA

FAVORITES

TAILORED POPULAR

Nav Bar

Tab Bar

Twitter Sitemap

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FULL NAME

TOPIC OPTIONS

PASSWORD

PHONE NUMBER

EMAIL ADDRESS

USERNAME

SUGGESTIONS

ENTER

SELECT OPTIONS CONTINUE

SIGN-UP

ENTER

USE EMAIL

INSTEAD

SKIP

ENTER

SELECT CONTINUE

InitialSign-up Flow

Content Selection Flow

Twitter Sign-up Flows

Competitive & Comparative Analysis03

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Competitive Analysis Takeaways

We looked at the apps Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram, Snapchat and Vine. Each app gave us insight into how users interact with the most popular apps similar to Starling.

Two issues emerged:

1. The onboarding process for Foursquare is a bit of a cautionary tale. The user is asked a series of incrementally intrusive questions in a never-ending series of screens. It allows for a possibility of drop-off by the user that we definitely want to avoid.

2. Snapchat allows users to tell (and view) a story of their local experience through a series of photo and video uploads, but this process is radically restricted and is hidden for all but its most intense power users.

Armed with this information we proceeded to create an app prototype with a small barrier to entry that is easy to use and understand.

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Nav Bar

Tab Bar

Facebook Sitemap

HOME

SEARCHSTATUS

NEWS FEED

FRIENDSPHOTO

FRIEND REQUESTS

CHECK-INS

MESSENGER NOTIFICATIONS MORE

PROFILE UPDATE INFO

NEARBY FRIENDS EVENTS

NEARBY PLACES FIND APPS

FIND FRIENDS

PAGES CREATE PAGE

NEW GROUPS CREATE GROUP

GROUPS

GAMES ON THIS DAY

FRIENDS PHOTOS POKES

MOST RECENT

HELP CENTER ACTIVITY LOG

PRIVACY SHORTCUTS REPORT A PROBLEM CODE GENERATOR FEED PREFERENCES

SETTINGS TERMS & POLICIES

LOG OUT

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NavigationFoursquare Sitemap &Onboarding MAIN SCREEN

SEARCH

Would like to use your current location Turn on notifications?

Foursquare wants to send you push

notificationsMAIN SCREEN

Msg: can change background location in iPhone Settings

SEARCH

FOOD

SAVED PLACES

MAPSETTINGS

SEARCH

NIGHTLIFE

SEARCH

COFFEE

LISTS

CREATEDNOTIFICA-

TIONS

SEARCH

FUN

LISTS

SAVED

SEARCH

LOOKING FOR

SEARCH

CREATE NEW LIST

SAVED PLACES HISTORYME

SIGN-UP / TASTES /PEOPLE

Onboarding

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NavigationInstagram Sitemap

MAIN SCREEN

EDIT PROFILE

INSTAGRAM DIRECT PROFILE

OPTIONS

SEARCH

PHOTOS PEOPLE

OPTIONS

SUPPORT

OPTIONS

SETTINGS

OPTIONS

ACCOUNT

OPTIONS

ABOUTFIND

CONTACTS

SELECT FACEBOOK

FRIENDS

INVITE FRIENDS

ACTIVITY

FOLLOWING YOU

ADSBLOG

PRIVACY POLICYTERMS

ABOUT THIS VERSION

HELP CENTER

REPORT A PROBLEM

LINKED ACCOUNTS

PUSH SETTINGSCELLULAR DATA USE

SAVE ORIG. PHOTOS

EDIT PROFILECHANGE

PASSWORDPOSTS YOU’VE LIKED

PRIVATE ACCOUNT

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NavigationSnapchat Sitemap

HOME

STORIESMESSAGES

FLASH SELECTOR

DISCOVERMY ACCOUNT TAKE PHOTO/VIDEO

ADD CAPTION

SET FILTER

SEND TO FRIEND

REVERSE IMAGE

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Nav Bar

Tab Bar

HOME

FIND PEOPLE

FRIENDSVINE CONTACTS

HOME

MESSAGES

OTHERTWITTER CONTACTS TEXT/EMAIL INVITE

EXPLORE RECORD VIDEO ACTIVITY PROFILE

Vine Sitemap

Technical Background Research04

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Technical Background Research

Twitter Log-In Functionality Starling users would sign in with their Twitter accounts. It would follow the framework laid out by the Twitter Development Team, which follows below:

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Core Location FrameworkStarling would utilize iOS’ Core Location Framework. The Core Location framework lets you determine the current location or heading associated with a device. The framework uses the available hardware to determine the user’s position and heading. You use the classes and protocols in this framework to configure and schedule the delivery of location and heading events. You can also use it to define geographic regions and monitor when the user crosses the boundaries of those regions. In iOS, you can also define a region around a Bluetooth beacon.

GeofencingGeofencing is a another widely used term among design and technical professionals that would be an essential component for Starling, allowing users to receive notifications in real-time about events. “Programs that incorporate geo-fencing allow an administrator to set up triggers so when a device enters (or exits) the boundaries defined by the administrator, a text message or email alert is sent. Many geo-fencing applications incorporate Google Earth, allowing administrators to define boundaries on top of a satellite view of a specific geographical area. Other applications define boundaries by longitude and latitude or through user-created and Web-based maps.”

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LimitationsAccuracy is not exact using the most common ways of implementing geofencing, such as WiFi, GPS, and Cell ID. Some margin for error needs to accounted for. It’s possible that can be explained to the user in the UI.

According to the iOS Human Interface Guidelines: “To make smart decisions about what types of information to return, the geocoder server uses all the information provided to it when processing the request. For example, if the user is moving quickly along a highway, it might return the name of the overall region, and not the name of a small park that the user is passing through.”

What functionality could be extended using third party services?The functionality of geofencing can be extended using Personagraph, a mobile user understanding platform that provides deep insights into who users are, what they like and where they go, while allowing them to establish their own preferences and privacy boundaries. This would prevent irrelevant notifications that would cause users to disable the app.

Loopt is another example of a third party service our app could use.

Design Standards We will be using the iOS Human Interface Guidelines for our mobile app. They have already helped us settle design issues, one example the use of texts to identify features on a page.

User Research05

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User Research Summary

“The idea behind your project is a creative one and sounds like it is addressing a real need!”— Evelyn

Project Statement Pin-Up Feedback + Comparative/competitive sites to look at

+ Technical research avenues to investigate

+ Questions about how our app would differ from Twitter.

Survey & Interviews+ Ten question survey to screen for respondents that had a familiarity with Twitter/other

social sharing apps (Facebook, Snapchat, Foursquare, etc.)

+ Also asked about finding and sharing information behaviors

+ 82 unique visitors took our survey.

+ 27 of those who took the survey left their contact information.

+ Of those 27 we interviewed ten of various ages and backgrounds.

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Affinity Mapping & Findings Taking what we’d learned from our interviews, we did an affinity map, grouping notes about behaviors into areas of overlap. What we found was:

+ People who share and people who don’t

+ More people consume than contribute (7 vs. 3)

+ People are constantly checking their phones when they are out

+ Twitter is easy to use, and Twitter’s simplicity of design is loved

+ Twitter’s feed can be overwhelming

+ Retweets and hashtags tend to clutter and confuse the feed

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Card Sorts Open SortsCreated sixty different notification examples:

+ “Ferry accident at Pier 11.”

+ “Surprise sales event at Donna Reese in SoHo!”

+ “Somebody just set a Citibike on fire on 23rd and Broadway!”

+ “I didn’t realize there was a street fair on Broadway in the 70s today.”

+ “[A Picture of two cute dogs sitting next to each other outside an italian restaurant]”

Initial Takeaways+ People wanted large general categories like “News” and “Events.”

+ Time was a common thread

+ People wanted to be able to determine if the information was “actionable.”

+ “Free” was a category that came up several times

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Card Sorting

Closed SortsCategories:

+ Sales

+ Free

+ News

+ Events

+ “Only in New York” became “NY Moments”

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Interviews

Interviews were conducted in person, over the phone, or via a video service such as Facetime. Interviewees were not compensated for their time.

Interviewees were questioned about their Twitter usage, features they liked or didn’t like about Twitter and other social sharing apps. We also asked about how they use their smartphones, how often they refer to them, what kinds of information they look up. We also questioned if they had enabled push notifications and why or why not.

User Personas06

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Personas

After sending out a screener and interviewing ten people, we created four personas based on our findings to represent Starling’s different user types.

April Martin Tyler Cynthia

Consumers Contributers+

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Personas

April goes out nearly every night of the week. When not assisting Patrick Stewart at a film premiere, she’s with colleagues or old college friends at an endless array of concerts, bars, karaoke clubs, bowling and other types of excursions. She doesn’t organize these excursions, but goes along with the crowd. April also loves fashion and shopping. She considers herself a “power shopper” and is always looking for good deals and sales. On Twitter she follows some comedians and musicians. She mostly uses Twitter for fun, but doesn’t tweet herself.

Wants To know what’s going on so she can keep up with the crowds. Good ways to learn information about sales.

Needs Simplicity. She doesn’t use Twitter mainly because she finds the hashtags and retweets confusing.

Potential Obstacles April is more of a follower. Getting her to use and share anything with her friends is difficult.

Potential Opportunities Become an even more powerful “power shopper” using Starling.

April“The Casual Consumer”25, Lives in Fort Greene Works as a Talent Assistant at Spotlight PR Agency

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Personas

Martin’s a busy guy who works eight performances a week for one show and is in rehearsals for another. When he goes out it’s usually during the day. He eats out a lot with friends and is always looking for the perfect brunch. He also enjoys getting outside to the parks when it’s nice out, and he looks for fun (and free) things to do during the day. He follows friends and theater professionals on his Twitter feed, as well as sports updates. He also uses Twitter for news about New York City. He is an active texter with his friends, but almost never tweets.

Wants Technology that’s easy to use and can give him the specific information he’s looking for. It’s hard to meet up with friends during the day, as they’re mostly all busy working, and so he’s often looking for things to do on his own. An app to help with that would be great.

Needs Social connection and information aggregation in a quick, easy, fun way.

Potential Obstacles Finds Twitter hard to follow. Convincing Martin to use a new Twitter-based app could be a challenge.

Potential Opportunities Open up New York City in a way Martin has not experienced before through social sharing.

Martin“The Targeted Consumer”32, Lives in Astoria, NY Broadway Stage Manager at “Fun Home”

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Personas

Tyler uses his phone for everything. He’s on it almost every moment he’s on the street, to the point where he was almost been hit by a car because he was checking Facebook. He’s usually in the middle of two to four text conversations and tweets everything he sees and does. It’s become part of his lifestyle. He goes out a lot to dinner with his girlfriend, clubs and bars with his friends, concerts. Tyler is the plan-maker, getting his groups of friends involved. He’s the guy who comes up with the ideas. And he documents everything with photos, tweets, etc.

Wants To know about every popular app that can help him in his social life.

Needs Functionality. Likes clean design, but he’s mostly interested in features.

Potential Obstacles Already uses many social apps.

Potential Opportunities A new way to find more things to do that he can share with his friends.

Tyler“The Sharer”34, Lives in UWS Store Manager at Diesel

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Personas

Cynthia’s job is to promote events that are happening at the bar where she works. They do trivia nights, singles nights, have live music, and show big sporting events (football, World Cup,etc.). The bar has accounts on every social media platform available.

Wants To be able to reach people who are returning customers as well as new customers who would be interested in what’s happening at the bar.

Needs Something easy to use so she doesn’t spend all day on social media (she has other responsibilities as well).

Potential Obstacles Thinks a new app might not be worth her time.

Potential Opportunities Ability to reach people who’ve never heard of the bar she works at.

Cynthia“The Promoter”31, Lives in Maspeth, Queens Works for a bar in Manhattan

Feature Creation07

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FeatureBrainstorm

After analyzing all of our research, we continued with a feature brainstorming session.

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FeatureBrainstorm

KEEP IT SIMPLESharing + Location (map)

+ Feedback (rate, confirm/deny)

+ Camera (still, video)

+ Text

+ Channels/Categories/Tags

+ Access camera thru other apps

+ Curators

+ Camera Filters

General+ Push Notification options

+ Archive

+ Time Limit (90 min/24 hour)

Consuming + Date & Time

+ Alerts

+ Map

+ Browse

+ Save

+ Rate (users, events) or Confirm/Deny

+ Share (email, SMS, Twitter)

+ Follow Users

+ Delete

+ Set a “home” on Map

+ Connect to Calendar

Sketching & Wireframing08

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Intitial Sketches

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Intitial Wireframes

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Intitial Wireframes

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NavigationStarling Sitemap

MAIN SCREEN

LIST VIEW SETTINGS

ENTRY VIEW

POPUP

PUSH NOTIFI- CATION

CHANNEL VIEW

TAKE OR SELECT PHOTO

ADJUST TIME

RADIUS

CONTRI- BUTE

ENTRY SCREEN

SELECT CHANNELS

The Prototype09

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The Prototype

http://invis.io/RA2UZ3FW7

User Testing10

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User Testing

We conducted numerous paper and digital prototype tests. Please consult the findings below.

Paper Prototypes Main Page+ People are clear about the categories

+ Confused about the Twitter button, they think it will take them to Twitter app

+ Everyone understands the Settings button

+ People think the plus/minus changes the map

+ People are confused about the Search button, what they can/cannot search

+ People get the List view button

+ Click on the radius to search a wider/smaller perimeter

The Pop Up Button+ They were confused by the time

+ People weren’t sure about tapping it to get more information

List Page+ ¾ of users were confused about confirm and deny

+ “View on map,” most people got that and thought it was a great idea

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User Testing

Digital InVision Prototypes The Contributor Flow+ All users were able to understand our basic flow design, and understood that the colors on the

main page buttons corresponded with the colors of the pins on the map on the main page.

+ “That’s f--- nuts!” All users delighted with the NY Moments content submission process.

+ A few people were not sure at first what the top filter did, but understood it very soon after exploring the app more.

+ One user did not at first understand that a checked pin meant it was a verified happening.

+ “There should be a label for the time slider.” 2 users were confused by our slider buttons on the main page under the map. We made these buttons bigger and changed the copy to “time range” based on the user feedback.

The Consumer Flow+ A few people commented the design was clean. One user thought the push notification

was live and not part of the prototype. This was very encouraging.

+ The consistent feedback we received for this flow was that the description bubble hovering over the pin was too far north on the map and caused confusion over where the activity was located. To remedy this, we made the bubble larger and rectangular and hovered it at the top of the screen. We also zoomed in on the map to make the locations more clear.

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User Testing

Next Steps11

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Next Steps

Due to time-constraints not all features and feedback could be incorporated. Our next steps for this project are as follows:

Settings+ Ability to set search parameter increments (i.e. increase timeframe by 5 min, increase

radius by .25 miles)

+ Allow users to set push notifications/alerts

Accounts+ Sign-in via Twitter

+ Allow users to create unique account

Visuals+ Design needs further refinement

Testing & Iterations+ Following further feedback we would like to test our newest prototype and perform the

required subsequent iterations

Annotated Wireframes12