Settings Renewal
​
​
Users want to quickly and easily find the features they want.
​
Settings is the application applied to all devices, but users always answer the same questions about how much of the functionality they are using. It was a negative answer, saying, "It's difficult, and I don't know how to find and use it." It was a project in which the design team first proposed to revise the setting application, which was difficult to improve until the previous devices, which took too much time to modify and conducted usability tests by reviewing all the functions of the relevant departments as a whole.
How could we make complex and difficult functions easily?
My Role
​
As a UX designer and researcher, I was in charge of rethinking and rebuilding our setting app from the ground up.
​
What I do
​
- Conduct Research
- Defining Design Principles
- User Key Value & Scenarios
- Visual & Interaction Design
​
How it all started
​
​
Settings review workshop
(4 months)
​
- Member : UX/UI, Usability, Terminology, Product planning, R&D and Verification team
- Review all setting menu’s ordering/grouping/ usages
Count frequency of use
- Research competitive cases
Restructure Setting IA
(1 month)
- Restructure menu tree based on the results of setting workshop
- Review all new setting menu’s with Workshop members
User test for the menu structure (2 months)
- User test for new IA through a focus group interview
- Check Google mandatory requirements issue
- Review by overseas branch and carriers
Visual Design
(2 months)
- Design Grid / List view
- Re-design setting menu icon for grid view
- Modify icon for consistency
1. Use only a few features but, hard to find
The user uses only a few menus in the complicated setting menu.
Per the result of reviewing the frequency of use and usage scenario, users use only a few setting menus.
“Quick menu” is needed for using quickly the frequently used menu and added “Search’ button on the application bar to be used whenever users don’t know the correct menu label
​
2. LACK OF PERSONALIZATION
It is necessary to provide customized functions that users can change if they want while delivering frequently used setting functions based on data in advance.
Learning from our users
Rebuild User Journey
Setting app has too many depths, mixed up the menu by supported on Android OS and new menu by adding a new feature by Samsung. Users cannot find setting menu they want to use. Groups are not intuitive and predictable. All the setting functions of previous device conducted a full review through the workshop from the perspective of the frequency of use and menu hierarchy.
Renew IA
A quick setting is added for using the frequently used menu easily.
First depth(Connect, My device, Accounts, More) was removed and 9 categories are supported. Among 4th and 5th depth menus, some items are relocated to upper depth as the result of used frequency. Some features are relocated for product competitiveness.
The finished designs
Quick settings
The quick settings is a new menu in the Settings menu, which has one primary purpose : helping user accessing frequently used menus.
This screen allows any 12 items from settings to be placed at the top.
Search button and view mode
On the application bar, the search button added to search what users want to use easily.
Users can access to change view mode option in the Options menu. It supports List view/ Grid view for user wants.
New icon style
Icon metaphors and shapes have been modified to make them easier to recognize. The user test was performed, and the last icon was completed after several times.
New grouping
‘Settings’ section of the Galaxy S5 consists of 9 categories: Quick Settings, Network Connections, Connect and Share, Sound and Display, Personalization, Motion, User and Backup, System, and Application.
Folded menu
As user needs, user can fold or unfold the 1st depth menu.
Cloud information
- Cloud usage, Storage, Downloaded status, Detail settings
Synced contents
- Calendar, Contacts saved in Samsung account, Samsung Internet browser, Samsung Keyboard data
Backup and restored contents
- Calendar, Contacts saved in Device and SIM, Call logs, Home Screen Layout, Apps, Device Settings
, Messages, Files
​
Guided to interaction design
Learn from the project
It was the hardest thing to persuade the development team in this project. Development wanted to leave the current state of the mix of Samsung and Google codes, and the design team argued that there was a fatal problem with usability and that it must be corrected. Many design research and user testing were conducted to persuade the development team, and eventually, the development was carried out because of the data. It was a project that once again realized the importance of user data, and it was a project that was significantly contributed by the development team members who considered and developed the usability aspects most important in stressful situations.