OVERVIEW

Finding a better way to distribute and showcase Giides across multiple social media platforms to improve brand awareness and increase user engagement.

The Team

Tools

TIMELINE

UX/UI Designers: Neha Bokhari, Jeremy Chong, Lily Chun
Lead Product Designer: Bonnie Sweet

Figma, Miro, Zoom
Group design challenges and meetings through Miro & Zoom. Ideation, Wire-framing & Prototyping via Figma

4 - 6 weeks
Weekly sync ups with the team, collaborative design exercises and decision making twice a week with UX/UI designers.

Problem

Solution

When shared on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, a Giide is presented too much like an article, as opposed to a playable, interactive video. This misrepresentation leads to a decrease in users being able to recognize Giide as a product, lowering user interaction and engagement with the platform.

Because Giides struggle during post distribution with their user engagement and brand awareness, we expanded the Giide creation process to indicate that Giides are interactive and an emerging new media format that is recognizable across multiple social media platforms.

Plan

The first thing we did as a team was come up with a plan on how we wanted to work together and figure out our process. We used Miro to plan out the next 4 weeks.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Empathize & Define
‍
   ○ Competitive Analysis
   ○ Customer Journey
   ○ Empathy Map
   ○ HMW Statements
   ○ Pain Points
   ○ User Personas

Ideate
‍
   ○ Crazy 8 Sketches
   ○ Postup
   ○ Disney Creative Strategy

Prototype
‍
○ Low-Fi Prototype
○ High-Fi Prototype

Review & Test
‍‍
○ Final Review with Giide
○ Usability Testing Plan

Empathize & Define

Next, we worked together to conduct a competitive analysis on platforms that were similar to Giide. We compared the features, did a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis and rated everything at the end as a team. After that, we used various UX methods to define the problem further.

Findings

MY Contribution

Users see Giides as just another article or video rather than as a new kind of medium that allows them to listen to audio interact with it visually via links and images. This misrepresentation leads to a decrease in users being able to recognize Giide as a brand, lowering user interaction and engagement with the platform. These pain points could leave Giide creators feeling dismissed and unconfident in the current sharing and distribution methods for Giides

○ Competitive Analysis (Spotify)
○ Customer Journey
○ Empathy Map

COMPETITIVE analysis

   ○ Vimeo, a video-hosting app like YouTube
   ○ Spotify, a music-streaming app
   ○ Loom, a screen-sharing app
‍
Vimeo allows users to personalize their sharing option.
Spotify has a great sharing interface and recognizable brand.
Loom has great social features that make users want to interact with it

Customer Journey

empathy map

HMW, User personas, & pain points

Ideate

Before we could start designing, the team and I participated in creative exercises that prepped us for detailed discussions around how to better Giide's recognition with its users.

Findings

MY Contribution

We started with Crazy 8s sketches to get all of our thoughts and ideas on paper. Then, we took our best sketches and finalized 3 solution sketches as a team. We adopted one feature from each of our sketches. The features included: personalized sharing preferences, customizable thumbnails, and transcription/closed captioning. My contribution was customizable thumbnails

○ Crazy 8 & Solution Sketches
○ Post Up
○ Disney Creative Strategy
‍

all Crazy 8's & solution sketches

My contribution for Crazy 8's & solution sketches (Customizable thumbnail)

Postup & disney creative strategy

The Dreamer
‍
   ○ Giides are an innovative/new type of media
   ○ Giides integrate into any platform
   ○ Giides make audio more consumable for web

The Realist
‍
   ○ Brand recognition is still needed
   ○ Some features might require backend work
   ○ Disney Creative Strategy

The Critic
‍
○ Brand recognition may not be achieved if there is not a universal template.
○ Users may still not want to interact with Giide

Over Zoom, we conducted two group brainstorming activities together that allowed us to expand and narrow down on our ideas. With Postup, we set a timer and posted notes about a host of categories including questions, concerns, ideas, and features. For the Disney Creative Strategy, we again set a timer and brainstormed our thoughts for each type of situation: the ideal situation, the realistic, and the restrictive.

Prototype

Together on Figma, we started wire-framing & built a high-fidelity prototype of the journey a user would follow from recording/uploading an audio to publishing it.

findings

MY Contribution

For the wireframes, we worked together. For the high-fidelity prototype, we worked separately on all the screens and came together to discuss them at the end of the week

○ Wireframes
○ High-Fidelity Prototype (Step 3, 4, 5, and half of the Last Step)
○ Customizable Thumbnails
‍

Wireframes

My contribution for Crazy 8's & solution sketches (Personalized sharing preferences)

Closing Thoughts

Our last step was to present our new features and solutions with the entire team and deliver our final closing thoughts on what we learned and how we can improve Giide's existing production process. Want to know more? Here is our case study slide deck.

Problem & Solution

Testing

In an ideal situation, if we had more time and resources, our next steps would be to conduct three rounds of usability testing before handing it off to developers.

Takeaways

1. Interactivity:
‍When trying to indicate to users that Giide is a new media format, branding and indications of interactivity were important. Including a customizable thumbnail helps the user recognize Giide as a consistent new framework; closed captioning helps users interact with the product at a higher level; and personalized sharing preferences really allow a user to distribute their content in uniform ways across all social media platforms, promoting recognizability.

‍2. Accomplishments:
‍Using UX thinking and processes, we have successfully conducted a case study that not only helps improve the distribution for Giides but really examines the opportunities and additional features within social media platforms, ultimately, helping Giides become more recognizable by current and new users, for years to come.

‍3. Thoughts on Future Iterations:
‍Should time permit, our current high fidelity iterations would be even more powerful and valuable after conducting tests as well as interviews from engineers as well as product managers, from like minded individuals in terms of business value proposition as well as backend viability.

Try out the PrototypeHere!