This study examines the design of the Dropbox Android app with a UX perspective, and highlights the design decisions that make the app more usable, as well as suggests changes that can be made to improve the user experience of the app.

I have tagged design and interactions with three labels, according to how they benefit the following goals of the app.

tags

 

Information Architecture Overview

The application’s UX analysis will make sense only in context of the various screens in the app, and the user’s journey between them.

dropbox app architecture

 

Start Screen

The Start Screen Experience achieves two main things

1) Allows existing users to immediately sign in. Saves user’s time.
2) Informs new users about most valuable features of Dropbox.

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New User Registration

New user registration process is made as smooth as possible. The idea is to get the user into the app as soon as possible.

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During account creation, progress spinner is shown in a light box.

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User Login

Login screen has visual feedback to guide the user to log in as soon as possible.

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First Time User

First time users have no data in their Dropbox storage. Instead of empty screens, friendly messages guide the user about what each screen of the app is for, and suggests actions to perform related to each screen (Files and Media tabs).

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First Time Login

Drop box offers seamless photo and video back up from the mobile device. The first time a user logs in to the app on their device, they are presented with a screen that allows them to set up this functionality.

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A first time user is prompted to set up drop box on their desktop computer. This is a painless 3 step process that creates a smart installation package specific to the user for a one click deployment of Dropbox on their computer.

Slide37A new Drop box account has a user manual in it by default. This serves the following purposes:

  • Allows user to learn about Dropbox’s functionality in detail
  • Trains user to interact with files in the app
  • Demonstrates the app’s pdf reading capability

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Main App Screen

Once user is logged in on the device, opening the app brings them to this screen. Directly jumping to relevant content to provide value to the user. Four main sections, with four corresponding tabs.

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Suggested changes to enhance the user experience
  • Swipe sideways to navigate between screens
  • Pull list down to refresh / update the view

Less used functions are tucked away in a menu in the top right side of the screen

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Finishing Notes

Dropbox is arguably the most popular cloud storage solution in the market. Their mobile app is designed to optimize mobile use cases, while still providing the robust feature set available on the website. It will be interesting to see how the application evolves in the future.