The fans skip a beat when you just name it. Last year when Disney and Lucasfilm released the Star Wars app, there was a slight disturbance in the app store. And we do not need an explanation. Or do we?
The purpose of the app was to keep fans updated about what’s going on with the series and notify them about the upcoming interesting titles such as “The Force Awakens”. Star Wars fans signed up in huge numbers to stay updated about the big announcements, updates with a news ticker, and view exclusive interviews! To add a fun and playful angle to it, Disney added the selfie feature as famous characters from the series. You can even choose your favorite theme for the app - Light Side, Dark Side or Droid!
I picked up this very crazy app for user testing this week. Before moving into the details of the app, try the star wars app prototype and have fun with it.
Now let’s move ahead screen by screen and explore what works and people are most crazy about; with heat maps and other UX insights to support the thoughts!
#Home screen
Which element gets the maximum attention?
The star wars app prototype above opens in the temperature of the theme you choose. The prototype is made for the “Droids” theme (Apologies to the Dark side fans).
Surprisingly, the most interact-able area on the home screen turns out to be “The countdown of celebration, London 2016”.
Takeaway : Probably the makers should provide a larger section of the home screen to this much desired elements.
Next in order is the “Selfie” tab. Call it social media vanity or casual fun, it IS definitely the trend among the youngsters. So the heat map is completely justified.
Takeaway : Probably the Selfie tab could occupy a place higher in the screen.
P.S. - Another much interact-able area is “This day in the Star Wars history”!
#Selfies in the prototype
Taking funny selfies and circulating it in the peer group is hilarious! Star War caught this trend perfectly and has given multiple elements to play around with.
There are options to
- switch your look in the selfie
- change the character behind you
- The color of the Light Saber (sword)
- The background of the selfie
I tried few of them and I loved most of them. I was curious to know which option attracts most of the users.
(Selfie Screen)
Takeaway from this screen
The heat map was kind of very surprising. Apart from the capture button, all other options got almost equal attention from the users. There could be two reasons for this -
- Users loved all these options equally and wanted to try all of them
- Or, the other aspect could be, the icons are not intuitive enough so users are trying out all of them to check if one excites them.
To get this clear, I compared capture screens in alternate option to know which combination excites users. And I actually found out that this particular combination got the maximum “capture” clicks! (Qui-Gon Jinn is loved by most, it seems!)
#News Feed
News Feed has featured stories on the top of the screen, and tons of other tidbits listed below the main stories. The user is supposed to swipe to get other featured news.
Fans are expected to be enthusiastic about the latest and featured news about the Star War series. But according to this experiment, the highest number of drop-offs have occurred on the second swipe of the news feed. If done a larger scale and the results turn out similar, then the maker might want to play a bit with it’s interface and experience on the news feed.
(Conversion Funnel showing the higher drop-offs)
#Wrapping up
The Star war app is an app full of innovation, surprise and awe. They have attempted to create new, wondrous experience that unites the physical and digital world. Users are definitely delighted to use it; fans might use words higher in degree than delighted of course. But as any other app, there is always a chance of improvement in terms of user experience - the bar is never set, it has to be re-defined every single time; just as the series never restricts itself to elicit volumes and volumes of emotional response.
Your opinion on their UX is truly welcomed and needed. Do leave your comments below or drop me a mail at monika[at]canvasflip.com