Lassy Project Case Study

Background: Creating Safer Communities

Lassy Project is a startup that helps create safer communities by allowing parents to form a “network” of their trusted friends and family members to receive instant alerts if their child goes missing. 

Law enforcement involvement and AMBER alert issuance require a number of criteria and time lapse. Not all cases of missing children can meet those requirements and therefore cannot get the immediate help of larger search and rescue teams. Lassy Project fills this gap by allowing parents to create their own search and rescue team via a “network” of close friends and family members. 

The Challenge

After downloading the app, users were not creating “networks,” which was the key action that we wanted them to take in order to reap the app’s value.

The challenge here was to create an onboarding experience that allows users to effortlessly understand how to use the app and then proceed to create their first network.

Project Summary

For this project, we ran design sprints to rapidly generate a variety ideas. The team voted for which ideas to move forward to higher fidelity wireframes. We did 3 rounds of iterative testing, refining the design and integrating user insights from each round of testing before arriving at the final solution. The final solution is a 4 step onboarding flow that defines the ambiguous “networking” term and walks the user through each of the app’s key actions. Upon finishing the onboarding process, users can take action and create their first “network.”

Digging Deeper to Understand the Actual Problem

Through user surveys and user interviews, we tried to understand “why” our users were not creating networks. Here are the key findings. 

1. They didn’t understand what “network” means in the context of the app.

2. They didn’t have an emergency when they downloaded the app so they forgot about it.

Rapidly Generating Ideas Using a Design Sprint Process

Our goal here was to generate a variety of ideas and test those ideas in front of users as quickly as possible. We integrated the Google Ventures design sprint concept into our design process. Our design process looked something like this.

Ideation - Rapidly Sketching Possible Solutions

Before sketching different ways to solve our onboarding problem, I broke down the user’s journey to “create a network” into 4 key steps.

Steps for a User to Create a “Network” on the Lassy App

1. Create a child profile

2. Understand the definition of “network” in the app’s context

3. Add members to the network

4. Understand how to send an alert to the network

The design team diverged to rapidly generate different design solutions to the onboarding challenge. We let our creativity take charge and quickly came up with a slew of ideas. We presented our sketches to the CEO, CTO, and core team, who voted and decided which ideas to proceed to the next phase.

Exploring Different Solutions

The team voted for which sketches to move forward to higher fidelity. At this stage, I took responsibility for designing and creating interactive prototypes for user testing. (We used usertesting.com.) I did 3 rounds of testing, starting with a simple onboarding experience in Round 1. Next, I tried a more action-focused approach that lets users add people to their network as they go through the onboarding flow. Finally, integrating feedback from the first 2 rounds, I tested a hybrid of Round 1 and Round 2 for the 3rd round. In the last approach, users had the most success creating networks.

Round 1: Simplicity-Focused

Simplicity is one of the fundamental principles of UX design. If a problem can be solved with a more simple solution using fewer steps, then that takes precedence over a more clunky approach.

Applying the simplicity principle and mindfulness of our users’ busy lifestyles, I started with a short and straightforward approach that defines how “network” works in the app. Although simple, this approach did not encourage users to create networks or engage much with the app.

Killing 2 Birds with 1 Stone

Apart from creating an onboarding experience that helps us convert users, Lassy Project, as an early stage startup, was growth-focused. This prompted me to think of ways to integrate inviting new contacts and sharing the app while redesigning the onboarding flow. 

The Round 2 prototype lets users send invitations to people who are not already on the Lassy Project network.

Round 2: Action-Focused

Next, I tested a more action-driven approach where users can add members to their network as they go through the onboarding.

This approach had better results than the previous one, but the much longer “add to network” step discouraged some users from finishing it. 

Round 3: A “Tell, Show, Do” Approach to Onboarding

By this time, I had consumed every piece of information about how to create an engaging onboarding experience. I chose to apply the “Tell, Show, Do” framework to onboarding. First, tell the users what to do. Next, show them how to do it (I used pictures of mobile screens here). Finally, give users the opportunity to “do” the action.

Additionally, I integrated the user feedback from rounds 1 and 2 into the “Tell, Show, Do” framework to create a hybrid solution that combines simplicity with a prompt for action. This approach had the most success when tested in front of users. They went through the flow and added people to create their “network.”

Final Design

I took responsibility for designing the final UI, which largely follows the 3rd prototype. The final design is an overall more simple version that retains the same key information. Users can quickly understand what network means and how the app works. Immediately after the 4 page flow, users can add members to create their first network with as few as 2 taps. 

After adding people to their network, users see a pop-up screen that shows their actions. The screen also serves the duo purpose to encourage users to share the Lassy Project app to their social networks. 

Result

Our initial testing showed that 20% more users went through the new onboarding experience and successfully created a “Network.”

Learnings

Having 3 rounds of rapid prototyping and user testing allowed us to know that our solution would work reasonably well before getting to the final design. This was especially helpful for our lean engineering team. Also, as a designer, it’s crucial to be able to detach from my designs during the ideation phase in order to generate as many unique solutions as possible. The design sprint process helped cultivate that. I will continue to incorporate this process into my future projects.