Skeema Case Study

DATA VISUALIZATION | HEURISTIC EVALUATION

Analyzing User Activity for Skeema’s Re-launch

I developed a new way for users to organize tabs in Skeema, a Chrome extension, by designing a floating widget that prompts users to save tabs more efficiently. This solution addressed user challenges and enhanced the overall tab management experience.

Client:

The Problem

Skeema was designed to help users declutter their browser and mind by organizing tabs. However, a year after its launch, the product saw a decline in users

Skeema is a browser extension developed by a lab at Carnegie Mellon University under Professor Niki Kittur, aimed at decluttering the browser and organizing tabs to improve user focus.

Recognizing that researchers, students, and others who frequently open multiple tabs for different contexts needed Skeema, I saw an opportunity to identify underlying problems and develop a solution for the product's second launch.

The Users

The Heavy Context-Switcher

Instead of focusing purely on the profession of users, Skeema’s main user archetype is the context switcher—those who juggle multiple projects, keep numerous tabs open, and navigate multiple windows. For example, this could be a researcher handling various topics and projects, with different tabs open for each one.

Data Visualization

Using Tableau and Python, I created visualizations of user data collected from Skeema, which allowed me to generate valuable insights

Finding 1

Sorting tabs into projects is a favorite feature

From the survey responses, I discovered that users identified sorting tabs into projects as their favorite feature. This suggests that tab organization for optimized searching and finding is a key strength that Skeema offers.

Opportunity:
Recognizing the importance of this feature, I decided to research more on the tab sorting functionality to ensure users could maximize their benefits from Skeema.

Finding 2

Users opened many tabs, however did not open many tabs from the group

One of Skeema’s core features is the ability, which is a user favorite, to open save tabs in group for later use. However, data revealed that the average number of tabs revisited from saved groups was significantly lower than the number saved. This was an intriguing finding, suggesting that users might either be forgetting to save tabs and just keeping them open, or they may be saving tabs they don’t actually need.

Opportunity:
This finding inspired me to take the next steps in research to gather more information on why this might be happening and what factors could be causing this dissonance for users.

Solution

An Easier Way to Save Tabs to Projects, Without Changing Tabs

To tackle the challenge of increasing the usage of the 'save to group' feature, I designed a floating widget in addition to the Skeema extension pinned on the left. This widget is aimed at prompting users to save a useful tab immediately, instead of having to remember to switch tabs and then save them.

Measuring Success - Next Steps

To see if this solution is successful in achieving the goals, these are the metrics that we can collect:

Click rate on widget

This will help determine how useful the widget is in prompting users to save tabs.

Number of tabs added

This will help assess the widget's impact compared to the original method on user behavior.

Hover rate on widget

This will help us determine the conversion rate from hover to click

Reflection

Read my reflection post on this project featured on UX Bootcamp!

Before coming to MHCI, I saw design as grand, groundbreaking ideas and concepts. My two semesters in the program, including this class have taught me valuable lessons. The smallest, most strategic changes — such as changing the color from bright to dark or moving the CTA button from bottom to top — can have a huge influence on user engagement and, as a result, achieve UX goals.

I learned that you don’t always have to introduce a new feature; if your research indicates that something isn’t working, you can make minor strategic changes, observe how people engage with it, and use that data to influence your design decisions and further build on it. This has been my biggest learning!