A personalized, responsive advice app

a UX/UI Case Study

Developed as a capstone project during CareerFoundry’s UX Immersion, Bravura is a cross-platform solution designed to bridge the gap between curiosity and professional expertise. In an era of information overload, Bravura provides a direct line to verified specialists in health, finance, tech, and personal development, etc., empowering users to move from uncertainty to informed action with on-demand, reliable advice.

Project Overview

Traditional methods for advice are slow and inconvenient. People need reliable, personalized advice but often struggle to find credible experts, vet their qualifications, and schedule a convenient interaction. Additionally, most sites and apps offering expert advice tend to be very specific or in niche topics, Bravura solves this by providing direct access to a wide spectrum of verified experts, simplifying decision making through clarity, confidence, and speed.

The Problem

Bravura provides a curated marketplace of verified experts, offering various consultation formats (e.g., chat, video call, asynchronous Q&A) with transparent pricing and scheduling.

The Solution

If users are given instant access to a wide range of verified experts through an intuitive and trustworthy platform, then they will feel more confident making decisions in uncertain moments.

Initial Hypothesis

Strategy

When designing Bravura, my aim was to keep the design process in the forefront of my mind to create an app that supported intuitive UX/UI elements and interactive design. My strategy focused on these core pillars:

human centered design→every decision was rooted in the user’s emotional and practical needs.
trust→users need to feel safe in asking for and receiving advice
quality→answers to questions need to be accurate and truthful
transparency→users need to understand what they are paying for and what they are getting in return, reinforcing trust

By combining research, usability testing, and iterative design, my goal was to create an app that was friendly and trustworthy, allowing users to enhance their decision making capabilities.

EMPATHIZE

Competitive Analysis

To differentiate Bravura from the competition, I conducted an analysis of JustAnswer and Quora to identify areas where my app could improve upon the short comings of what is offered by these sites. What my analysis found was that JustAnswer lacks transparency within its pricing structure and has hidden fees and a difficult and deceptive cancellation process. On the other hand, Quora is free, but lacks accuracy and credibility with the advice that it offers. Both of these are trust issues, complicating and weakening their relationships with users.

Unlike these sites, Bravura emphasizes transparency in its pricing structure and presentation, with advice being accurate and experts being vetted and certified to create a trustworthy bond with users. Additionally, by removing unnecessary clutter and noise from the interface, the design offers an intuitive and rewarding experience, further strengthening trust and retaining users in the process.

Methods

To get a full overview, I analyzed the competition, specifically JustAnswer, Quora, and ADPlist. I looked at their strategies, market advantages, and marketing profile. This allowed me to see how they communicate and what they value as important.
I conducted a SWOT analysis
to identify strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats. This helped me to discover where Bravura could differentiate itself and stand apart from its competitors, and ultimately led me to identify the above attributes.
By analyzing the UX design of these apps, I was able to identify user pain points and where the design was unfriendly or fell short. I scrutinized the layout, usability, navigation, compatibility, differentiation, and CTAs to help strengthen and inform my own decisions once it was time to start wireframing and gave me insight on how to create a user friendly and intuitive flow for my own users.

Key Takeaways:

a process to verify the factual correctness of the information being given, especially in a crowdsourced platform like Quora
a way to prevent a wide swing in the depth, usefulness, and professionalism of the responses
a filter for superficial, self-promotional, or generic “cookie cutter” responses
upfront clarity on fees, especially regarding subscriptions, memberships, and additional charges for special features (phone calls on JustAnswer)
straight forward, low-friction steps to cancel memberships
a business model that aligns the platform’s profitability with the user’s success
a system that guarantees the active and current credentials of the expert
a tool to hold contributors accountable for providing bad, harmful, or generic advice
technical and design quality that fosters trust; bugs, poor calendar functionality, and clunky UX undermine the credibility of a platform meant to provide trustworthy expertise
a model that supports genuine, long-term, and continuous relationships rather than one-off, transactional Q&A sessions
built-in features for follow-up questions, progress tracking, or reminders to encourage users to implement the advice received
the ability to easily maintain a history of the user's background, goals, and previous advice received across multiple sessions or interactions

Most advice apps tend to lack:

User Research

To better understand what real users would want from an advice app, I conducted initial rounds of user research in the form of in-person interviews. I began by defining clear research goals to understand how people go about receiving advice, more specifically from an online platform, and what they would want from an advice app. After my interviews, I used the answers to populate an affinity map to better understand and categorize the most essential user needs. What I found was that most users desires aligned with what Quora and JustAnswer lacked; mainly a transparent payment structure, vetted and certified experts, a wide range of topics, and trustworthy advice.

By synthesizing competitive intelligence and user research, Bravura delivers a sleek, frictionless experience that redefines the digital advice landscape.

Methods

To help me understand what real people would want from an advice app, I conducted in-person interviews. Using a script and clearly defined research goals, I was able to direct the questioning in such a way to gain insight into how the design should start to take shape and what important features to include.
After collecting the responses to my interview questions, I used Miro to categorize each participant’s answers into a color coded affinity map. This helped me to visualize what was most important and to define the main themes and features of my app.

Insights:

users want trustworthy, reliable, and speedy advice
they want experts to be certified in one way or another
categories of advice range across a wide degree of topics.
users regularly seek out advice on the internet or through an app
users would like to build relationships with experts and work with the same people on a continuous basis
users mostly worry about conflicting, unreliable, unspecific or too much information and the integrity of the advice
users want a simple, user centered, and easy to use interface that can be used across multiple platforms
users would like a rating system for experts
they would like some gamification and rewards system
they would like chat, video, and phone access to experts
a calendar or scheduling system would be helpfu

DEFINE

User Personas

In order to keep the focus on the user, I created user personas to help build empathy around the app. Although fictitious, these personas are based on the responses I received during my interview sessions with actual people, making them feel realistic. In addition to building understanding and empathy, the personas help to guide design decisions, aligning teams and stakeholders in the process. The personas will also hopefully help to avoid any design pitfalls, such as designing for the team or getting too specific for one type of user.

Identities

Christina is a married professional with a small child that balances her time at work and with her family, either at home or on vacation. Her powerful career splits her time between New York and London, so she is constantly on the go, and maintains two apartments.
Erika is a single, independent freelance project manager. Her career offers her a lot of freedom and she likes to work on and ride her motorcycle. She recently bought an old house that she is remodeling by herself. She is also a lover of animals and has two brown boxers, George and Martha, that accompany her wherever she goes.

User Journey Maps

Using the personas I created earlier, and the concerns of real people that I uncovered during my research, I created user journey maps to further cultivate a feeling of empathy surrounding the features of the app, I created user journey maps. This visual tool is intended to illuminate a deeper understanding and familiarity of how users may interact with the app. By excavating the emotions of the user personas, I was able to identify and correct any pain points early to avoid any abrupt interruptions or expensive fixes late in the design process.

By interviewing real people and noting their concerns and desires, I was able to create user personas that represent a wide range of users, and our target audience. By addressing these insights, Bravura can offer features like a stream lined sign up and onboarding process, ways to categorize and select experts, and a way to view past interactions. Not only will users be able to communicate with professionals in a variety of formats (video, phone, messaging) they will have options for payment and level of commitment.