Research

Gaps in the Market

In order to better understand how people send group ecards, I worked with a group of designers to examine existing platforms to see what works and what needs to be improved. We sifted through product reviews of Kudoboard, VidDay, and Vidhug to gain additional insight.

Existing group ecard platforms

• Limited background options

• Pricey subscriptions (limited with free version)

• Needed help during process

Video editing tools

• Too complicated to use

• Many features offered but not used

• Don’t offer a centralized platform

Although our client initially described our target audience as being tech savvy millennials, we discovered that existing platforms actually cater to non-tech savvy baby boomers.

After further discussion, our client still expressed an interest in catering to millennials, so we adjusted our scope to suit their needs. We conducted additional market research on millennials to learn more about their habits and behaviors.

Understanding my users

We spoke with 6 users who had experience creating, organizing, and receiving video montages. Due to the increase in millennial greeting card purchases and higher per-unit spending, we decided to target these individuals.

Through these interviews, we wanted to uncover:

1. Process of inviting users to contribute

2. Process of organizing/putting videos together

3. Process of recording/editing videos

4. What users are doing with these videos after

5. Pain points during these processes

We found out that users appreciate the amount of time and effort put into these video montages and would like to share them with others. We also found that they don’t mind the length of the videos, but want a way to easily pick and choose videos to watch.

Who is our target user?

In order to build a competitive advantage over our competitors, we had to appeal to the millennial market.

Using an affinity map, I synthesized our findings and aggregated them into three personas.

Defining core objectives

Our research findings allowed me to narrow down the issue and develop these problem statements below:

Since organizers and recipients are likely to spend the most time on this platform, I decided to prioritize them first. Furthermore, we found that existing group ecard platforms were hard to use without adequate guidance, so I wanted to address this need as a top priority.

I defined the following objectives for our MVP:

1. Make it intuitive and easy to use without assistance

2. Streamline process of inviting, receiving videos, and putting content together

3. Create a personalized watching/sharing experience

4. Allow simple recording/uploading from the platform

Define

Keeping the business in mind

Defining business goals and user goals helped me develop feature requirements and strike a balance between helping the business while also ensuring the users had a great experience.

Technical feasibility

With a better understanding of our problem space, we collaborated with the developers to prioritize our features based on impact vs effort. Because our budget and resources were limited, we did not have the bandwidth to accomplish everything we intended so we had to scale back objective 4.

Test & Iterate

Validating our objectives

Due to the short amount of time we had available, my team conducted testing focused on the main flows that users will interact with on the site.

Flows that were tested include:

• Organizer creating a board

• Organizer inviting contributors

• Contributor uploading and submitting video

• Recipient viewing video

• Recipient thanking contributors

After testing, I compiled all the insights and revised our wireframes based on what was most critical.

Pain Point 1

All users were confused by the phrase “card” and were left to guess or assume what it meant.

Pain Point 2

Several users liked the tooltips and found them helpful, but some did not notice what they pointed at and found them hard to see.

Pain Point 3

Users enjoyed the flexibility of viewing the final piece either as a board or as a collection of videos, even commenting that it felt more personalized. However, all users found it difficult to thank their contributors, as they were unaware that there was an option for doing so.

Pain Point 4

Half of the users weren’t sure what the filters were and what their purpose was causing them to ignore them.

Prototype

Final Design

Feature 1

Guiding an organizer through creating a card

After entering details about the recipient and event, organizers are walked through creating their card with tooltips highlighting key features. I’ve include the guided tooltips in order to help new users navigate more easily by explaining where to click and how to use it.

A user can click the help button to bring up the tooltips again and explore specific topics and features.

Feature 2

Inviting contributors and viewing received/waiting videos

Organizers can easily invite people through a variety of channels from the platform with an invite message automatically written, making the process seamless and quick. I’ve also added a contributor section where organizers have quick access to view received and waiting videos.

After videos are submitted, they will auto populate where they can be filtered and easily organized. Organizers can also remind those who still need to send in their videos.

Feature 3

Simplifying process of rewatching and sharing videos

Recipients have the flexibility of viewing their videos on a card or played as a series of videos. Users can also select and filter by specific tags to see videos based on their preferences.

Allowing users to curate their own playlists and share them with others allows them to relive these special moments.

Responsive Design

Our interviews revealed that users mainly record videos using their phones, so I opted to build a mobile-friendly site to accommodate their needs.

Contributors are guided through the steps of uploading, editing, and submitting their video. Users have the option to trim their videos and customize their videos with stickers and text overlays if desired.