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CASE STUDY: Find My Friends App

Find My Friends Overview

Find My Friends is an iOS native, preloaded app that allows you to geolocate your friends or family in real time. Your friend must opt-in or share their location using an iOS device in order for you to follow them, and visa versa. There are a few additional features - such as location-based notifications, parental restrictions, and allowing your location to be shared permanently or temporarily. Overall, Find My Friends is a really simple app that allows users to locate their friends.

Problem

The problem I see with Find My Friends (FMF) is very small, but it affects my user experience every time. When I use the app, the goal of my use case is to find the location of one specific friend. I follow a lot of friends on FMF, so as soon as the app is opened, all the friends are listed in alphabetical order, which is great! But as soon as the app begins to locate each individual’s location, it will put them in order from least to greatest distance. Not each individual’s location loads at the same time, so from a user’s perspective, my friends start to sporadically jump around in list order, making it difficult to find the one friend I’m looking for. I end up scrolling up and down my friend list multiple times to find that one specific friend. There is also no friend search function to mitigate this UX problem. This problem is a small aspect of this app’s user experience, but it’s annoying every time I use the app. The screen recording below shows the moment the app begins to locate my friends, snapping them out of order:

 
 
 
 

Solution

The solution to this problem has two parts. First, Apple should add a Search feature. Many iOS preloaded apps--such as Messages, Contacts, and Notes--have a built in Search feature that appears when you pull down on the screen. Find My Friends should have a similar built in Search feature, where I can type in the name of my friend I’m looking for, and they will come to the top of the list. 

Second, Apple should add a “Filter By” feature, where a user can filter their friends by either distance or alphabetical order right when they open the app. This would make finding that one friend or multiple friends much easier right from the beginning of the use case. Here’s an example of how the interface could look with the Search and Filter By feature added:

 
 
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The Bottom Line 

Apple is world renowned for leading the way in user experience and design. In many ways, they set the precedent in the tech industry for UX and design. Even though this problem with this native, preloaded iOS app is relatively small, Apple’s reputation and global market share should be enough reason to perfect such a widely used and downloaded app.

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