Aarogya Setu — UX Case Study

Overview

During Lockdown, I and my friends started group calling since meeting in person wasn’t an option. On group calls, we often discussed the increasing COVID cases around our houses. And for that, we used Aarogya Setu for identifying the number, and for each of us, it took quite some time as it was shown in a vertical marquee format — with each figure coming one by one. And we had to wait for 3–5 seconds to read the next card.

Moreover finding out previous days cases through graph was not an easy task too.

And that’s how this redesign project started. I thought this could be a good start for me in design as I get to strip an app down to its basic elements and redesign it to serve a specific purpose. I started listing down the pain points and the list became longer than expected.

Research

To find out the pain points faced by the users, I conducted a series of user research — User surveys, Usability testing and Playstore reviews. This way, I will be able to understand the needs of the users and make better decisions for the redesign.

Defining the Target Population

Since Aarogya Setu is made mandatory by the government to every citizen of the country. The Target audience varied from an 18-year-old schoolboy to anyone over 70 years. This made one thing clear, that the app should be clean and simple to use so that any person of any age group has a smooth experience.

Surveying Users

The survey intended to capture how and for what purpose users were using the Aarogya Setu app. The survey was taken by 11 users of different age groups including my family members and friends.

Questions ranged from what was the main purpose to open the app to how users got their covid related news/updates. This survey was written in Google Forms and here are some of the findings:

Usability Testing

During this pandemic situation, it wasn’t possible to meet many people personally. So, I conducted usability testing with a limited group of people consisting of some of my friends and family members.

Usability Testing

The tasks assigned were as follows:

1. Find out the total number of COVID positive cases within a radius of 500 meters of your location.
2. Find the number of confirmed COVID positive cases in the last 2 days in India.
3. Navigate to COVID updates and by looking at the graph, find out the total number of deceased people throughout India on any day of your choice.
4. Find out Recovered cases on 11th October in the capital, New Delhi.

This is what I learnt from the usability tests:

• Users had to wait for the vertical marquee which frustrated them to an extent.
• It was not possible for any user to tell the positive cases of the last 2 days.
• Graphs were a mess and difficult to understand.

Play Store reviews

The best place to collect experiences from other people is the reviews from the Play Store. I went through as many reviews as I could which helped me gather more information about peoples frustrations.

Affinity Map

I created an affinity map to analyse the findings of the user research and uncover the key pain points faced by users.

Pain Points

From all the research, I drew the following conclusions:

1. MAP — Many users on the play store suggested that maps should be added in the app to locate covid positive patients so people could avoid the particular route while heading out.
2. Vertical Marquee — Through all the research methods used above many users expressed their frustration regarding the vertical marquee where one has to wait for each line to appear one by one. This is one of the most important features of the app which ends up being very time-consuming.
3. Unreadable graph- Through usability testing, I learned that it was not easy to read any of the graphs because :

• All the data is accumulated in very little space without any organization.
• The matching colour used for the bar graphs and background makes it even more difficult to read.

4. Tabular Information: The state-wise stats table is disorganized which doesn’t give the user a comfortable experience.

5. Media: Some users didn't like the fact that the videos were being shown twice

Ideation & Paper Prototyping

After keeping all the pain points in mind, I mapped potential solutions to each of them and created rough UI sketches to encapsulate the solutions.

UX Suggestions & Redesign

Experience #1: Status

The current design of the status tab gives a very dull vibe. I had to go through a number of changes to bring some life into this tab.

1. Aarogya Setu logo: Earlier the status tab showed ‘Aarogya Setu’ text written on the top. I changed this text with the app logo for a better visual representation. Tapping on the logo takes the user to the status page.
2. Health Status Card: The next section I decided to change was the health status cards. So, I divided them into 3 categories :

I decided to add the user’s name on the card to give them a personal feel. And for a better visual feel, I also divided the cards based on colours and by adding exclamations and tick marks based on their status.

3. Call Helpline and Assess Again: Earlier the Call Helpline and Assess again buttons were placed at the bottom. I changed the buttons into interactive cards and moved them beneath the status card as it makes more sense to have an option to assess again directly below the status card. I also added other helpline numbers including Mental Health Helpline, Child Helpline etc. by consolidating them in one single card.

4. Statistics Card: During my research phase I found out that almost every user had a complaint about the vertical marquee which takes quite a lot of time to convey very basic information. I decided to make information-based cards. This card shows all the required information in an organised way. Which means no more time wastage.

5. Map: My research process helped me understand what users wanted. Many users expressed the desire to have maps showing affected areas. This would allow users to take alternative routes to reach their destination without exposing them to the risk of COVID-19.

6. Navigation bar: The problem with the current navigation is that it is on the top of the screen which makes it somewhat difficult to move between different tabs. Positioning the navigation bar at the bottom makes it easier for users to click on the menu icons and move between other tabs.

The app has a navigation bar of blue colour whereas some buttons like ‘assess again’ and ‘call helpline’ are purple in colour. So I changed all the buttons of the app to purple colour to maintain uniformity. Here I also added a section of Resources that I will talk about in the coming part.

Experience #2: Resources

The below screenshots clearly say one thing: Misinformation, or fake news, is infectious. It spreads like wildfire.

Fake news in India is a rising problem. The use of social media platforms to broadcast false information is becoming a dangerous trend. Real news and genuine information are increasingly getting buried in a large quantity of false information.

Hence, introducing- Resources.

The Resources tab will help the user by providing genuine and verified articles which are regularly released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for the public. I have also included a search box to let the user find information about a specific topic easily.

Experience #3: Overview

1. Search/Dropdown Box: Earlier there was no option to select a particular state or UT and view the number of confirmed cases, recoveries etc. For this, I introduced the option of a search box. I also added the option to view cases according to days with a single tap.
2. Graphs: Earlier the names of the months were overlapping each other and it was impossible to read data of a particular day due to very tiny bars. During the redesign, I added horizontal scroll to view ‘all time’ data and also gave the option to select 7 days, 15 days etc
3. Table: Small fonts and bad alignment make it a tedious task to understand the table. I redesigned a neat version of it.

Prototype

Working Prototype can be viewed here.

Prototype

Validation Testing

To validate the changes I made, I surveyed some of my family members and friends with my prototype. I asked the same questions from my initial tests and recorded their behaviour and feedback. The results were as follows:

1. Users were able to find out the total number of COVID positive cases within a radius of 500 meters of their location.
2. Users were able to find the number of confirmed COVID positive cases in the last 2 days in India.
3. Users were able to navigate to Overview and could find out the total number of deceased people throughout India on any day of their choice.
4. They also easily found out Recovered cases on 11th October in the capital, New Delhi.

Conclusion

From finding out the problem and validating it to conducting user research, preparing wireframes based on the identified user needs and developing the UI for the app — the entire process has been highly rewarding (and just a little bit tedious)!

I found the design process, based primarily on the user needs and pain points discovered through research, very satisfying to work on.

The outcome of all the long hours spent trying to develop a user-centric and user-friendly experience led to this design solution.

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this insightful!