Pinpointing the issue

From user testing, I found that many of the subtopics in Settings have misleading names, causing users to tap into the wrong subtopic, or just get confused and randomly tap when they are unsure what to do. Some of the subtopics also did not seem to belong in Settings to begin with. There was also a great level of redundancy, with many different ways to access the same setting which confused users.

What are others doing?

I performed a brief competitive analysis on Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Uber, to get a sense of how others format the layout of their home screens and settings pages. The most important takeaway was that many competitors put different categories of settings in different locations on the app instead of having everything under “Settings”, or group items into broader categories to ease informational overload.

Let’s try a new layout

As a result, I looked through the Settings and identified the important features to keep. These were arranged in a grid format emphasizing the icons. This made it easier for users to see all the subtopics at a glance in a visually appealing way. Some subtopics were moved to more appropriate locations, like “Privacy” to the Account Settings page and “Audio Player” to the Wazer page. The button leading to the Wazer page was also renamed “Your Waze” to signify that it led to more personalized settings and information.

Final product

Testing, testing

I did a final round of user testing with my redesigned Waze app. The tasks were focused on tasks from the first round of user testing that people had the most issues with. These included finding the “Avoid Tolls” page and the “Gas stations” page.

Overall, the issue finding “Avoid Tolls” was fixed, as most people correctly identified that it is located under “Navigation” on the settings page. By grouping settings more effectively and in a more visually appealing way, users had an easier time navigating the app.

However, most people had difficulty finding the “Gas stations” page, as they tried looking on the settings page instead of clicking on the search bar. Going forward, perhaps access to the “Gas stations” page should also be located on the settings page as well as under the search bar. Further changes should also be made to some of the icons, such as the orange “Report” icon, since many users were confused about what certain icons mean.