VAHA: Profile access A/B test

Context

VAHA made a smart mirror for training at home, with a companion app. In the designs for the app’s community features, friends and followers, a leaderboard, groups and challenges all sat on the member’s profile, and other members could search for a profile and follow it.

The goal was to decide whether the profile should become a tab of its own and hold the member’s notifications, and how the privacy settings should show who can see a member’s profile and activity.

Mapping the journeys

Both prototype files hold a frame from the community and gamification work, titled Journeys, that lists what a member sees at eight destinations across the app and the mirror. For the profile, it names stats and progress, friends with a leaderboard, groups and challenges, and referrals. The message centre gets four notifications: a friend joining a live class, a new reward, a challenge and a new follower. On the map, the profile and the message centre are separate destinations.

01Prototypes

Prototyping the entry point to the profile

I built both prototypes in Figma as iOS screens, from the same component pages, with the same mock member and content. Test A stayed close to the navigation the app already had. The member’s photo in the Home header opened the profile, and a message button beside it, with the unread count, opened the notifications.

In Test B, I made the profile a tab. The member’s photo sat in the centre of the tab bar with the unread count on it, and Home had no greeting header. The privacy settings opened on a table of who can see each item, and Add goal became a filled button where Test A had a text link.

Testing the two prototypes

I run user research to inform a direction or to validate a solution.

I built the two prototypes for an A/B test to inform the direction for the profile, and we tested them with users and a researcher. The settings, the notifications and every privacy screen after the first were identical in the two prototypes.

Choosing the profile tab

02Test B

Bringing the updates onto the profile

In Test A, the profile was a pushed screen titled You, with a back arrow, and the notifications had a screen of their own. Test B’s profile opened from its tab with no back arrow, and the three latest updates sat under the stats, with See all opening the full list. Below them, the two profiles were the same: the friends leaderboard, achievements, groups and challenges.

Setting who can see the profile

Test A’s first privacy settings screen listed four items, the profile page, activities, live status and workout together, each marked sharing enabled or disabled. In Test B, the same screen was a table of where the member appears and who can see it, with the profile page set to Everyone and activities to Followers.

After that first screen, the two prototypes were the same. The profile page picker offered Everyone or Followers, and saving a change led to one privacy table in both, with leaderboards, groups and challenges added as places a member appears.

Outcome

Test B was the direction I handed over for the profile when my contract ended in January 2022.