Lean Start-up Method, Branding, UX/UI Design
Fall 2014

Ditto

About

Sometimes the longest emails we write are also the most repetitive. Ditto is an iOS app that allows users to create and save their most commonly used phrases.

Ditto was a group project created as part of UC Berkeley's Mobile Entrepreneurship class (Industrial Engineering 190C). I was the user researcher and designer of the group.

Problem

Regardless of profession, it's impossible to avoid sending repetitive emails. While writing long-winded emails is an easy task on desktop, simple paragraphs or introductions become difficult and cumbersome on mobile.

We found that many people who open an important email on their phone will actually wait until they’re back at their computer to reply, even if taking too long to respond can sometimes be the deciding factor in landing an interview or closing a deal.

Process

Ditto was born when two of my team members explained how frustrated they were with the email exchange process involved in gaining sponsorship for Cal Hacks, a Berkeley based hackathon, they were working on.

Replying to repetitive emails on mobile can be awful. We wanted to fix this problem through a system of templates and dynamic variable placeholders, but we had no idea how many templates the average person would need or if they would want categories or some other way of organizing it.

We interviewed students, professors and working professionals to find out.

The experiment

1. We asked our interviewees to write down all of the common phrases that they found themselves typing on their phones on a regular basis on individual post-its. This could be anything from an introduction in an email, a greeting over text message, or a Chipotle order.

2. Sort all post-its into categories on the whiteboard. Feel free to have as many or as few categories as necessary.

3. Label each categories.

4. Explain why they grouped things a certain way, and the context in which you’d use each statement

We found that the average person had anywhere from 10-15 dittos, and no more than 4 categories. We used these insights to design the app.