Dont do — Redesign Case Study
Why you should avoid redesigning a big mature app for your first case study
In December 2019, I received a hiring test—a design challenge—from my dream company after countless times my resume didn’t pass the screening. It was the first time I felt so close to my ultimate goal, but it turned out I was still far from deserving it.
The theme of the challenge was simple, just like most common themes. Not much different from what other digital companies typically request.
“Redesign our homepage!”
At first glance, it seemed straightforward, but the more I thought about it, the harder it became to find areas for improvement. Redesigning an existing app is much harder than creating a product from scratch. There are many trade-offs and high expectations.
You don’t want your redesign to end up worse than the original version.
Challenges
After going through it myself and listening to the community’s complaints, I wanted to summarize the challenges of redesigning an app that might help you consider before taking on this topic.
01 — Finding Gaps in a Mature Product
One of my first reactions when I received the design challenge from my dream company was:
“Wow, this is already neat. Where can we possibly improve?”
Designers at my dream company, like Gojek, definitely want to redesign the Gojek app—whether to refine it or out of sheer fanaticism.
But the difficulty lies in redesigning a mature app; finding gaps is tough. Conducting research is also challenging and time-consuming. From a UX perspective, it’s already well-organized, and the visuals are impressive. As a beginner designer, we don’t know what we can improve. So, we end up leaving the task of finding problems to the users. Just ask them directly.
02 — Focusing Only on Visual Redesign
This is closely related to the first problem. Because we’re confused about what else can be improved, we end up just tweaking the visuals a bit.
Updating the style to be more Dribbble-esque doesn’t affect conversions. It doesn’t generate additional revenue either; instead, it just wastes energy on updating styles.
Imagine you’re developing a product, but the UI style changes every month. Don’t developers feel bad about that?
03 — Not Adding New Features
Continuing from the first point, as a result of relying solely on user feedback, we end up accommodating every user request. We end up with 15 additional features that users want. They might not be necessary, but they’re clearly desired.
It’s difficult to redesign an app without adding new features or incorporating all the features from competitors.
04 — Letting Personal Opinions Influence the Design
Unlike working on a new app from scratch, when redesigning an existing app, we often try out the app or have used it for a long time. As a result, most of the improvements we make get mixed with our own frustrations as users.
05 — Making It Worse Than the Original Version
Since the app already exists, expectations are high. It’s hard for us beginners not to make the redesign worse than the original version.
I cringed when reading my old case study. It was something like, “Why did I do this…” “Oh no, this is terrible.”
Solutions
From the challenges above, I have a few solutions that might help alleviate your doubts.
01 — Narrow the Scope to One Flow
Instead of trying to address user complaints as a whole, try focusing on one specific feature or flow.
It’s like when someone asks, “How are you?” and you reply, “Good.” It’s different if they ask, “How’s work at the office?” or “How was your date yesterday?”
Specific questions invite more specific insights. This can help when you’re researching and interviewing users. When you’re exploring solutions, you can delve deeper into solving the problem.
02 — Change Your Evaluation Approach
As UX Designers, we must focus on the user, but it’s okay to occasionally take a different approach. Don’t just rely on what users say; also evaluate the product you’re redesigning using UX principles, such as Nielsen Norman Group’s 10 heuristic principles.
From there, you can improve several points based on previous research without having to start fresh. Don’t be ashamed—research does take time and effort. Focus on what you can do.
03 — Switch to Another App
This is the last resort, lol. If you can’t meet the expectations, it’s okay to switch to another app for your case study. Look for an app that’s clearly “bad” in terms of UX or UI. Campus websites or government apps are often good candidates, haha.
Don’t get discouraged. Behind every company’s app, almost every page is handled by its own team, complete with a dedicated research team.
Conclusion
Every topic has its own challenges. It’s just part of a design challenge. But here, we need to understand what those challenges are and make sure we don’t fall into the same pitfalls repeatedly.