Overview
Historically, the app permission acceptance rate for the Zello Android app has been low with an average of 56.5% across all permissions, while the iOS app fares better with 79.3%. However, this may partly be due to the iOS app having fewer permissions.
Getting users to turn these permissions on is crucial for us as our main goal for our first-time users is first to voice - sending their first message on Zello.
Over several weeks, I worked closely with a product manager, two engineers (one for iOS and one for Android), and a graphic designer to develop a solution for permission requests.
Previous User Flows
iOS
Launch Screen
Sign up for an account
Enable permissions (x3)
Android
Launch Screen
Sign up for an account
Enable permissions (x5)
Without context, many of our users struggled to see the importance of these permissions. It can also be overwhelming for our users who are required to accept 5 different permissions for Android and 3 different permissions for iOS immediately upon signing up.
Early Explorations
Key Focus Areas
Based on learnings from the research phase, we decided to focus on these key areas:
Notify users up front and early as possible that permission requests will follow
Clearly list out the permissions users will need to accept and emphasize the importance of granting these permissions
Iteration Exploration
In the early stages of my exploration, I tried many different approaches and shared these early iterations with the design team and the product manager:
Content layout exploration
Title alone vs. title with subtitle explaining importance of each permission
Bullet points vs. icon accompanying each permission
Palette exploration
There were some limitations as our Android and iOS did not share the same design system. However, as this was a new screen, I was given the thumbs up to align them as much as possible.
Also, while exploring these variations, I kept accessibility in mind and thought about how the content would scale at much larger text sizes.
The Decision
iOS
Android
The product manager and I had a lot of back and forth on how much content we should show. We didn’t want to overwhelm users with too much information, but also didn’t want to provide too little that they wouldn’t understand the importance of these permissions.
In the end, we decided present users with detailed information up front, while visually breaking up the content to make it less daunting. While not all users may read it, we recognized the value for those who want to know the permissions they will be requested.
Refinement & Hand-off
During the refinement stage, it would have been a great opportunity to run some a/b testing to see what illustration or content performed better. However, due to limited resources, we did our best to run internal feedback sessions with the product, design, and engineering teams.
New User Flows
iOS
Launch Screen
Sign up for an account
Prime users (new)
Enable permissions
Android
Launch Screen
Sign up for an account
Prime users (new)
Enable permissions
Design Hand-off
In order to clearly communicate my designs and streamline the design-to-developer hand-off process, I created a design specifications document that outlined themes (light & dark) and accessible font types.
iOS
Android
Outcomes
After a month of initial release:
Android app permission acceptance relatively improved by 52.3%
iOS app permissions acceptance relatively improved by 15.4%
At first glance it may seem that the permissions priming screen may have performed worse on iOS, however, we need to consider that the acceptance rate for our app’s permissions on iOS was already much higher than that on Android.