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Improving Mobile Product Usability Through Structured User Research

Intro

The SensiWatch mobile app supports users in monitoring shipments and managing critical logistics data, but key workflows lacked clarity and consistency, impacting usability.

This project focused on designing and leading a structured usability research initiative to uncover friction points, evaluate core workflows, and identify opportunities to improve usability and overall user experience.

My role

I led the usability research effort end-to-end, defining the study design, creating task scenarios, and facilitating remote testing sessions.

I worked closely with product managers and engineers to align on research goals and ensure findings were actionable.

Beyond running sessions, I developed a structured approach to capturing both qualitative and quantitative insights, mapping user paths, and identifying patterns to prioritize improvements.

❋ Lack of visibility into real user behavior

Existing assumptions about usability were not validated, making it difficult to identify where users were actually struggling.

❋ Users adapting to poor UX

Participants had developed workarounds, masking underlying usability issues that only surfaced through observation.

❋ Capturing both qualitative and quantitative insights

Building a business case involves multiple paths (new vs existing customer, different products, different value drivers), making it difficult to create a clear and guided flow.

❋ Ensuring realistic testing conditions

Designing scenarios that reflected real-world usage was critical to uncover meaningful usability issues.

Designed and executed a structured usability testing framework to uncover actionable insights and drive product improvements.

Challenges

Solution

❋ Missing system feedback created confusion

Users struggled when the system did not clearly communicate outcomes or states.

  • 80% couldn’t recover login ID

  • unclear error messaging (username vs password)

  • “arrived” status looked like an action button

Opportunity
Improve system feedback and messaging to make outcomes and next steps clear

❋ Hidden or inaccessible functionality

Users had difficulty discovering or accessing key features.

  • difficulty locating expand feature

  • missed back navigation

  • issues editing/deleting acknowledgments

Opportunity
Surface important actions more clearly and reduce reliance on hidden controls

Research findings

❋ Interaction patterns didn’t match expectations

Users expected familiar mobile behaviors, but interactions were inconsistent or unintuitive.

  • 80% struggled to exit filter (expected tap outside)

  • users tried to uncheck filters instead of using “clear”

  • confusion around red X vs clear in search

Opportunity
Align interactions with common mobile patterns and make actions more predictable

❋ Missing system feedback created confusion

Some UI elements did not clearly communicate what they were or how to use them.

  • disabled trips unclear (60%)

  • expand icon on map not visible

  • icons too small / too close together

Opportunity
Improve visual clarity, spacing, and affordance to make interactions more obvious

Key decisions in the experience

Designed realistic task-based scenarios

Created task flows (login, navigation, trip details, alarms, maps) that reflected real user behavior, ensuring findings were grounded in actual usage.

Facilitated moderated remote sessions

Conducted one-hour sessions where participants shared their screens and verbalized their thought process, allowing deeper insight into user behavior.

Combined qualitative and quantitative analysis

Captured behavioral patterns, user quotes, and success rates (e.g. % of users struggling with specific features) to strengthen findings.

Identified and prioritized usability issues

Synthesized observations into recurring themes and ranked issues based on frequency and impact.

Translated insights into actionable design improvements

Delivered clear recommendations (e.g. improving login recovery, redesigning filters, clarifying status indicators) that directly informed product updates.

The research uncovered critical usability gaps across key workflows, including navigation, filtering, and system feedback.

These insights informed targeted design improvements, reducing user confusion and improving task efficiency.

It also established a more structured approach to usability testing within the team, enabling future research to be more scalable and actionable.

Impact

Overall, users were able to complete core tasks and found value in the app, but several interaction patterns created unnecessary friction and confusion.

Most issues were not blockers, but they slowed users down and required workarounds — indicating opportunities to improve clarity, feedback, and interaction consistency.

Overall takeaway