Case Study Overview

Oakland Cemetery is a historic cemetery and one of Atlanta’s largest public Parks. The company objective is to restore the grounds and be a cultural resource to Atlanta. They have a website that has been recently updated. They also have a mobile app.

We wanted to redesign the Oakland Cemetery mobile app because the current app is buggy and difficult to use. The challenge was finding out what users needed from a new app to improve their experience at the cemetery.

Project Scope

Platform: Mobile Application

Timeline: 2 Weeks

Tools: Sketch, Illustrator, Google Slides, Google Sheets, Slack, Post-its, paper, pencil, dry erase boards, markers

My Role: In this project, my role involved helping with the user research. This included collaborating on questions for the screener survey and phone interview. Visiting the cemetery, interviewing members of the staff about the app and cemetery’s goals. Affinity mapping all of the research (screener survey, phone interview, comparative analysis). Sketching out the wireframes for the mobile app. Also conducting some of the user testing. 

The Existing Mobile App

App lags a lot between tabs/when trying to click on another tab in the navigation bar. The app usually crashes when trying to use the ‘Map’ page or purchase a tour on the ‘List’ page. 

Research Process

Business Analysis

Below are the 5 apps we used to carry out a competitive analysis. The Heritage Civil War tour app and the Atlanta Travel guide app were chosen because they had information about guided tours. The Civil War Tour app actually has self-guided tours on the app. We chose Snapchat and Instagram because Oakland Cemetery’s users seem to have a high level of social media engagement. Those 2 are photo sharing social apps and we thought there may be an opportunity to include those features in a re-designed app.

Key Insights:

• A lot of the features for Oakland Cemetery’s app are not functional 

• Most of the apps had a map, but no real time navigation 

• Every app, but Oakland Cemetery’s existing app was easy to use

Personas

The results from our screen survey and phone interviews created the base for our personas. We used the insights from our affinity map to create their needs and pain points.

Alex

History buff who always brings friends & family to local, historic places so he can teach them about the history there. He loves Oakland Cemetery and all the history it has to offer - especially anything about the Civil War.

Needs

• Access of historical information

• Ability to navigate easily through the cemetery

• Diverse options of tours

• Ways to show groups around

Pain Points

• Not being able to choose the historical information he wants to see

• Not enough detailed information about historic sites

• Unclear timeframes of tours

Melissa

Stay-at-home mother of three young children. Always looking for different things to do to entertain & educate her kids outside of the house. Likes to post photos of fun things they do to social media (i.e., Instagram).

Needs

• A fun way to explore Oakland Cemetery

• A way to entertain & educate her kids

• Wants a cute way to document her children experiencing the cemetery

Pain Points

• Not knowing how to navigate the park with children

• Tours can take too long

• Has trouble keeping her children’s engaged

User Flows

After creating the user personas, we sketched out the user flows together on a table based on the needs of the users and what their goals would be. The user flow people is an example of a happy path for Alex. It walks you through Alex buying a self-guided tour.

Design Process

Wireframe Sketches

After creating the user flows, we sketched out the wireframes on a table together. We wanted to sketch out screens that the users would need to carry out and complete their tasks. After agreeing on the screens, I drew out more detailed wireframes with annotations.

Wireframes, User Testing, and Iterations

After creating the sketches for our mobile app. Our team did 2 rounds of user testing. First, with low-fidelity wireframes and then with medium fidelity wireframes. Below are images of iterations we made for key screens in the app.

Home Screen and Iterations

Below are the different iterations of the home page. After creating the low-fi wires, our team carried out user testing. Some of the feedback from that was to have clearer social media buttons. We did our second round of user testing with the Medium-fi wires. A key insight from testing the home screen was that the app felt more like a mobile website as opposed to an app.

History Screen and Iterations

Below are the low fidelity wires for the history page and the current state. During user testing, users voiced frustration with having to hit the back button multiple times when trying to navigate back to the home when on different screens. This led to the A/B Testing we conducted to find a solution for getting back to home.

A/B Testing

After our second round of user testing. An overwhelming number of users mentioned having to click back too many times to get back to the home screen. We came up with 2 options to solve for this problem “Option A” was a Home Button at the top of the nav bar along with a back button. “Option B” was a sticky nav that would be available on all of the app screens. The result of the A/B testing was that Option B, a sticky nav bar, was preferred over Option A.

Next Steps

• More iterations & user testing

• Adding an account option for users to save purchased tours

• Improve donate & events features

• In-app ticket purchasing for events

• Enhance photo filters and photo options

• Further develop app!

Reflection

This was my first UX project working in a group. We did a great job collaborating on the research and planning a timeline for goals. If we had more time on the project, I think it’d be a great opportunity to look into why return visitors don’t use the app/aren’t aware that Oakland Cemetery has an app. They have a lot of signage for the app around the park so I think we’d need to focus on an alternative way to advertise the app to visitors.