Going Through Our First Redesign: Why Interpreting Feedback is Essential

After three months and dozens of user tests for Tripper, our team decided to restructure the design of our site. It all started back in March/April when we hacked together the initial web app design in two weeks. Following that, we created a much cleaner version, and after a little more tinkering, we onboarded our first user test groups. We were excited then, both at how far we had come, and because we could finally let people use the site as it was intended.

During this testing period, we started to appreciate some basics of UX research:

• Users ask for features that sound cool, but aren’t practical
• Users will click on any button in front of them
• Making signing in as simple as possible is essential
• Although icons may look better, sometimes buttons with words are just more effective
• Users want improvements on features that are currently there, and are less helpful when it comes to entirely new product ideas that would help them (I often thought of the Henry Ford quote, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”)

With a hundred customer interviews under our belt, there was plenty of interesting data to dig through. We had done everything from showing paper prototypes to doing digital walkthroughs, and spent time watching people use the site live. One thing was abundantly clear. The site was just too complicated to use.

This was a shock to me, as I had preached simplicity from day one. Nevertheless, despite what seemed to initially be a setback, we really learned what the important aspects of the app were to users, and more importantly, what aspects weren’t.

With this new understanding, we took a couple of weeks to scrap everything and really think about what we wanted the entire experience to be. Now, we are excited to “re-launch” our app with a completely new design. This time, after showing the prototypes to users before starting the coding redesign, we feel confident that we have kept the essential aspects that users loved while making the entire system simpler, smoother, and cooler.

For more information on Tripper please go to gotripper.co, and if you are planning a group trip in the near future, leave us your email!