Mobile app — Christopher Thomas

Whitepages App

UX / UI / Mobile app design / QA

How do you make a people-lookup app feel like more than a phone book? And how do you successfully overhaul an app that’s already in the hands of a half-million people? Oh, and can it be delivered in a few weeks?

User story

As a mobile phone user, I want a way to find up-to-date phone and address details so that I can quickly contact a person or business while I am outside of my home.

My role

I was the sole designer on this project from inception to launch, crafting the experience and visual presentation in collaboration with the project manager and the mobile development team and based on the existing Whitepages identity.

› Ideation based on customer insights

The VP of product, project manager, and I discussed data collected by the customer service team and analytics software. Together we determined where the previous version of the app had been successful and how the new app could build on those successes.

› Designing a system

I created a well-defined and repeatable structure and visual system that developers could easily adapt to a variety of data outputs. As the dev team built the app from the ground up, I provided feedback and direction – partially as QA but also so that the developers and I were aligned with the intention and importance of the details.

The challenge

The Whitepages apps had become outdated in regards to functionality, branding, and business needs. The leadership team saw an opportunity to provide a better experience, build on the existing foundation of users, and ultimately increase revenue.

Our goal was to wrap a better search experience and new purchase options in a new app that fit the Whitepages brand – being careful to keep our current users happy.

The approach

The other Whitepages properties had moved almost entirely to card-based visual displays, which makes sense in the world of contact information. (Think rolodex, phone book, business card, contact card, etc.) The new app design followed suit, but in the mobile form it made even more sense. A card is harder to use as a metaphor on a desktop screen, but the size and shape of a mobile device makes it a perfect fit.

The product metaphor became a “contact card.” Some info on the card is always free – full name, city, age – and the user could “unlock” the full card to see more details. At the same time, the new app simplified the product offering to always focus on the people connected to the data. A user could search and find information for a phone number or an address, but the endpoint for each flow would be the person attached to that information.

The process

This project came up suddenly and had a short delivery timeline – roughly 6-7 weeks weeks from inception to launch. At the time I was working on 2 additional teams, so the challenge was a big one. I relied on the project manager to provide me with the necessary data and guidance on specific goals, and there was no time for user testing (sad face).

Within 2 weeks I had sketched ideas, moved on to low-fidelity mockups, and created the final designs for the basic pieces of the product. I worked with the project manager throughout the process to refine and expand the design to accommodate the many search result variations that users would encounter.

One of the goals of the project was to introduce a “single search box” that accepted any kind of search term – phone, email, address, name. This proved to be one of the project's biggest challenges. New app users had no problems, but without proper user testing before launch, we didn’t understand the issues that existing users might have with a new search mechanism. Thanks to feedback from users, we quickly made updates after launch to get users back on track.

Because the project had moved from idea to execution so quickly, we ran into some “moving target” issues along the way. Stakeholders had not fully determined the metrics and business goals of the app overhaul, and some backtracking, reworking, and “squeezing in” was required. It wasn’t ideal, but thankfully the finished app didn’t suffer substantially from the changes.