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Contrasting User Goals

3:15 with Alena Holligan and Kaleigh Veca

The reality is that you will have one product to meet these users’ needs. As you move into design and development, you should keep in mind each user group’s concerns to help guide your product’s development.

Build Your Own User Flows

If you want to build your own User Flows without relying on Sketch, here are a couple of alternatives. However, Sketch is the popular tool of choice for many people working in User Experience, so that is my top recommendation.

  • Funnelytics is a website that is meant for digital marketing sales funnels, but it has the components needed to make visual user flows quickly...and it’s free!
  • LucidChart is $5/month for a basic plan, but it includes a lot of premade shapes and features. It is less visual than Funnelytics, relying on text to convey meaning.
  • These are just a few options for you. There are many out there, and we recommend you looking for yourself to see what solution best suits your needs.

Further Reading:

This article explains user flows clearly, and it also shows other common types of flows you may see. It does a good job comparing and contrasting differences between user flows and the other flows represented

Linked earlier course notes, this Optimization Glossary from Optimizely does an excellent job covering what user flows are.

  • 0:00

    Now let's look at Social Sarah, our college student.

  • 0:03

    She has similar needs to Businessman Brian, she needs a ride.

  • 0:06

    But she'll use the app differently.

  • 0:09

    Sarah will still have a pick up location and destination.

  • 0:13

    She should still get a price estimate when she chooses a vehicle.

  • 0:17

    And she'll also need to confirm a ride and make a payment.

  • 0:20

    Sarah will also benefit from knowing when the driver is getting close to picking her

  • 0:24

    and her friends up.

  • 0:26

    We also have some key differences.

  • 0:28

    Sarah has additional passengers which may limit the types of vehicles she

  • 0:32

    can ride in.

  • 0:33

    It will cost her more to get a vehicle to fit everyone, but

  • 0:36

    it's still cheaper than getting two vehicles through the app.

  • 0:40

    She's not going to want a fancy car, but

  • 0:42

    a larger vehicle will be something she's interested in.

  • 0:45

    She doesn't know when she'll be going from place to place.

  • 0:48

    It doesn't make sense for her to schedule rides in advance.

  • 0:52

    The app could connect with other apps that let you send money to friends, so

  • 0:56

    Sarah can request money from her friends to help cover their portion of the fare.

  • 1:02

    She may also use referral codes or coupons she gets from the app.

  • 1:06

    So there should be a place for her to use those credits.

  • 1:10

    Let's say that Sarah is going back to her apartment with her friends but

  • 1:13

    she has an extra friend who lives out in the way and would like to be dropped off.

  • 1:17

    She'll need a way to add in an extra stop.

  • 1:20

    Again, this will cost more money than not doing this step, but

  • 1:23

    it will be cheaper for Sarah's friend than booking an extra car and

  • 1:27

    the driver can make a little extra money on the route.

  • 1:30

    Let's look at where these fit in.

  • 1:32

    We're going to put the new steps where they fit in.

  • 1:35

    For duplicate steps like booking a ride, we'll tuck the card behind

  • 1:39

    the businessman's card to show that they're both sharing that same step.

  • 1:44

    Sara also needs to go through onboarding, but

  • 1:46

    we are also assuming that she already has that set up.

  • 1:49

    Sarah will not be scheduling a ride, so we don't need that step.

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    We will need a pickup location which should default

  • 1:57

    to using her current location.

  • 2:00

    Sarah will also need to select the destination for herself and her friend.

  • 2:05

    Sarah will select the additional stop to drop off her friend.

  • 2:09

    The businessman only needed to go to the airport, so we didn't need this feature.

  • 2:14

    The app will need to present her with vehicle choices.

  • 2:17

    However, Sarah is going to be most concerned with number of seats and cost.

  • 2:22

    So we'll need to make sure that she has that information when choosing a vehicle.

  • 2:27

    Before she selects her payment method, she should be shown any discounts applied, and

  • 2:32

    given the option to add an additional discount code.

  • 2:36

    Finally, she'll book her ride.

  • 2:38

    And while they wait for their ride,

  • 2:41

    she can request that her friends chip in money to help pay for the fare.

  • 2:46

    The app will prompt her when the driver is nearby.

  • 2:50

    After the final person has been dropped off safely,

  • 2:53

    the payment method should be charged and an email receipt sent.

  • 2:56

    The app should still prompt her to rate her driver and the passenger experience.

  • 3:01

    And finally, tip, if she felt particularly safe or happy with the service.

  • 3:07

    Follow similar steps for your third persona.

  • 3:09

    What will be different and how will you fit those steps into our user flow?

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