Improving app usability through customer insight with giffgaff

About our client

Launched in 2009, giffgaff is the flexible mobile network that empowers consumers to have control over the plan they choose.

What our client wanted

giffgaff wanted to find out what level of understanding their existing and prospective members had of the different mobile packages they offered – and what their individual benefits were – by conducting usability testing on their new app dashboard.

giffgaff’s key objectives for this project were:

To understand what users thought of the various packages available to them and what they included
To identify if users fully understood the packages on offer, and the benefits unique to each one
To identify what made consumers decide which was the right package for them, and why

Image of two sketched prototypes. First image shows a dashboard prototype and the next is the select goody bag carousel. — *An early-stage paper prototype of giffgaff’s app*

What we delivered

Lab-based usability testing sessions took place in Bunnyfoot’s London studios
Recruitment of five participants, including giffgaff members and customers of other mobile network providers using Bunnyfied recruitment services
Testing of a prototyped design – built by gifffgaff with AXURE – conducted on iPhone 7

Two screens that were used in the usability tests carried out on the key features. — *Usability testing of the app’s key features*

The results

Testing helped highlight the need for more clarity regarding the differences between the mobile packages giffgaff offer, and at which stages of the user journey this information was presented
The sessions helped identify which features of the app users responded most positively to, and why
Feedback from participants about both the content in and design of the app provided actional insights that could be used to make key areas of the app more accessible
Participants also helped identify improvements that could be made to some of the app’s features (such as credit top-up functionality), in order to make them feel like they had more control over the process

This was giffgaff’s first experience of running an agile sprint project, and it gave them valuable insight into the level of understanding their customers had about their proposition, as well as giving them actionable findings regarding features and functionalities to implement in future iterations of the app.