Ratings, Reviews, and User Experience Research: Formulating Point Of View Statements for Three Illustration Applications

Before you make reservations at a restaurant, order an item from Amazon, book a room at a hotel, or download a new app, you’ll likely read reviews about it. Customer reviews and user ratings are real-life evaluations of things we access and utilize daily, including video games, applications, products, services, and more. Reviews and ratings are ever-desired and highly regarded, so much so that people search for the opinions of others via review apps and websites, online forums, Youtube videos, and more. Additionally, reviews are coveted by those who supply and modify a product or service, such as UX professionals, designers, and developers. From a potential user to a developer, everyone wants to know what works well and what needs reworking.

How Reviews Benefit Developers

In UX, user reviews of an application can be useful for developers. Users often find bugs and other issues that developers may not have spotted. Through reviews, these problems are brought to developers’ attention and are likely to be addressed in the next app update. Furthermore, some users of a particular app may have experience with, or exposure to, similar competitor applications. In this case, users have a good idea of whether the user interface is well designed, functional, intuitive, and makes sense for today’s users. Reviews give insight into a user’s personal experience with the application. This helps developers understand the current needs of their users and adjust the app accordingly. Lastly, some review platforms provide an active line of communication between the user and the developer. Users can leave a review about a specific problem they are experiencing with the expectation that they will receive a response from the developers. Once their questions are answered, issues are addressed, and needs are met, they can update their review to reflect their most recent thoughts and experience concerning the application.

Point of View Statements

Gaining insight into a user’s experience is all about understanding their vantage point. In User Experience design, a Point Of View (POV) statement” is a meaningful and actionable problem statement, which will allow you to ideate in a goal-oriented manner.” POV statements help pinpoint a direct need that needs to be met. This assists UX professionals in targeting the need and developing a solution. Instead of attempting to juggle many issues at once with their attention divided, UX professionals remain direct, opting to find a solution for one specific problem at a time. 

POV statements combine three components – the user, the need, and the insight. A Point Of View statement is formatted in the following manner:  

[User . . . (descriptive)] needs [need . . . (verb)] because [insight. . . (compelling)].

POV Statements in Practice 

This week, I reviewed three iPad illustration applications and completed a Point Of View statement exercise for each app. Utilizing Apple’s app store, I looked up three positive, negative, and constructive (also known as suggestive) reviews left by real-life Procreate, Autodesk SketchBook Pro, and ArtStudio Pro users. Positive reviews are left by users that are generally pleased with the app. They likely enjoy the app and are still making use of it. Negative reviews are left by users who are dissatisfied. Maybe they do not agree with the cost of the app, the app does not meet their expectations, or they found something better. Constructive reviews could have positive, negative, or so-so undertones. These reviews offer up meaningful suggestions and ideas of things they would like to see improved. After reading multiple reviews of each kind, I used my findings to create two POV statements per app. 

If you would like to view the entire exercise, feel free to download the PDF here.

For now, here’s what I did for Procreate, my favorite of the three. 

Procreate: Overview

Stats

• Overall Rating: 4.5 stars
• Rating Total: 22K
• Cost: $9.99 one time
• Awards: Editor’s Choice App
• Chart: #1 Graphics & Design

Descriptions

• Wikipedia: “Procreate is a raster graphics editor app for digital painting developed and published by Savage Interactive for iOS and iPadOS. Designed in response to the artistic possibilities of the iPad, it was launched on the App Store in 2011.”

• App Store Excerpt: “Loved by creative professionals and aspiring artists alike, Procreate us the leading creative application made for iPad. Offering hundreds of handmade brushes, a suite of innovative artistic tools, an advanced layer system, and the lightning fast Valkyrie graphics engine, Procreate gives you everything you need to create expressive sketches, rich paintings, gorgeous illustrations and beautiful animations. Work on the couch, on the train, at the beach, or while waiting in line for coffee. It’s a complete art studio you can take anywhere; packed with powerful features.”

Positive Reviews

Negative Reviews

Constructive Reviews

Procreate Point of View Statements

• Users that produce detailed projects over a longer period need access to their entire edit history because work can easily be lost, destroyed, or deleted permanently with no restorative capabilities. Some of the constructive reviews addressed something I have experienced before – losing work. If you make edits to a project and exit the project to return to Procreate’s project gallery, the next time you open your project you will not be able to utilize the undo button to restore past work. The undo and redo buttons are only applicable during the user’s current working session. This is an easy way to make irrecoverable mistakes. Similarly, if you accidentally delete the entire project there is no way to recover it from the trash.

• Users that utilize Procreate regularly need access to external or cloud-based storage because Procreate projects require a lot of memory and can easily max out iPad storage. Since procreate requires a lot of space, the only way to create space on your iPad and maintain your working files is to export the layered file and send it to yourself to store elsewhere (like your computer or external hard drive). This is tedious because transferring the files over to your storage destination is not a smooth process. It requires time and resources. Considering that Procreate is created for the iPad, if procreate was integrated with iCloud like other apps, users would be able to transfer their work over to the cloud and access it effortlessly.

Final Thoughts

Leave your own ratings and reviews! Publishing your thoughts and opinion helps other users determine if the product, service, or app will be suitable for them. Furthermore, reviews highlight problem areas for designers and developers to evaluate. Your review may lead to a more polished and refined app. Your two cents add up! After all, the customer is always right.