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UX DESIGN / INTERACTION DESIGN / UX RESEARCH
Influenster: UGC Education
Influenster puts free products into the hands of its 7+ million members in exchange for their honest reviews, including text, image, and video. Brand's expect a certain quality of user generated content, and Influenster saw an opportunity to educate.
UX/UI Designer, Interaction Designer
Nov 2022 -
January 2023 (Shipped)
Influenster
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Brands Want Great User Generated Content
Influenster's 7+ million member base brings incredible value to brands that are looking for honest reviews of their products.
Influenter Members create and submit over 30,000 images and videos per month, to give their honest review.
Most of Influenster's members are not your typical "Influencers" on social media; most are every day people, but collectively have the power in the marketplace to inform their communities about products, shaping the future of online shopping.
Influenster needs a way to help encourage and educate members on what it looks like to take a quality photo or video, especially for users who do not necessarily think of themselves as content creators.
Introducing the 3c's: Context, Clarity, and Center of Attention.
Discovering the Problem
After a few major recent updates to the platform, stakeholders reached out to its community to better understand their needs.
Overwhelmingly, users responded that they wanted to make sure that they were on track with their visual content to keep receiving campaigns of products for their reviews.
After an audit of UGC quality, stakeholders came to the idea of needing to softly educate members based on certain criteria.
Influenster needs a way to encourage and educate members on what it looks like to take a quality photo or video, especially for users who do not necessarily think of themselves as content creators.
Listening to What Members Want
Through other secondary research of threads, forums, and Influenster's own social channels, members have been looking for ways and guidance to improve their UGC quality, and at the same time improving their chances to be selected to receive more product in the future.
Education Challenges
DEFINE
Kickoff!
Our approach was to provide key incentives to our users in the form of Daily Tasks and Tier Points. Users were already familiar with these, but current Daily Tasks were shorter with fewer points.
Key Objective
We want to communicate the foundational elements of quality visual User Generated Content - before, we left the definition of quality to our users. As demand from Clients for UGC shifts to visual content in the eCommerce space, we need to ensure that we have high quality UGC available.
The quality of UGC also impacts the Influenster platform as a whole, making the quality of our reviews and content appear to have less value than they should.
Starting Point – Asking Ourselves Important Questions
We wanted to start by asking ourselves some fundamental questions around consistency, success metrics, and what elements would be used inside the quiz that would then be referenced elsewhere.
Also, creating a simple system system of main skills when taking product photography at home was going to guide how users would feel about the quiz and what they could learn from it.
INTRODUCING THE THREE C'S
The 3C's were developed as a simple and concise way of zeroing in on the three most important aspects of taking quality photos:
Clarity
Clarity is ensuring that the product you are taking photo or video of is clearly in focus without any camera filters added.
Context
Context is taking photo or video of the product in its natural environment. You wouldn't want to put shampoo or kids toys out in the garden, would you? Of course not!
COA
Center of attention ensures just that; the product you are taking photo or video of is not disrupted by other objects in the frame, leaving the product able to shine on it's own.
SUCCESS METRICS
What Does Success Look Like?
Success will be measured by looking at users who submit visual UGC after going through this training, and that they should have higher quality photos and video than from those who do not.
How Will We Evaluate?
Individuals – Did an individuals visual UGC visibily improve after going through this education?
Campaigns – Out of the users in campaigns, do we see those who have completed this training submitting higher quality UGC than those who do not?
Network – Overall, do we see a higher percentage of quality UGC submitted on a week over week basis?
PERSONAS
Meet the Influensters!
User personas were created to keep in mind and to design for the different types of individuals that use the product, based on their experience with both Influenster and content creation in general.
"THE EVERYDAY SHOPPER"
Age: 41
Occupation: Stay-At-Home Parent
Susan spends a lot of her time taking care of her kids, so much so that she rarely has time to think about what types of gifts to buy for her friends and family. She found that with Influenster, she is able to try new products all the time from her home, and all she has to do is leave a review. She isn't a photographer or necessarily tech-savvy, but she wants to keep receiving products so she can make recommendations or buy great gifts for her friends and family.
"THE INFLUENCER"
Age: 22
Occupation: Young Professional
Aaliyah, a popular smartphone photographer with her friends, has discovered Influenster as a way to receive new products from emerging brands, and wants to stay at the top of their game with photo and video reviews. She understands that as technology changes, so do products and how we review them. She is up to the challenge of learning pro tips for taking new photos, but does not have a lot of time to dedicate to it.
BUSINESS GOALS
Business and User Goals
User goals are to be selected for future campaigns to receive free product, while business goals are to deliver on high quality UGC. There is a direct correlation between users and the business wanting to have higher quality UGC, to both receive future campaigns as well as deliver on ratings and reviews, respectively.
DESIGN
Quiz Flow: From Open to Close
The user flow would be pretty straightforward, given that it would take place inside of a Daily Task existing feature. These tasks appear on the user's home dashboard near the top, so they are prompted to do them fairly often. The flow illustrates how one might go through taking the quiz, but given the frustrations of users potentially not having time, we wanted it to be succinct as possible.
Quiz Sketches
Sketches were born from the flow, keeping consideration of time, ease of use, and the main educational component of learning as you go. The initial screen contains a video that the user must watch before continuing, giving them the basis of the quiz structure. A "time" feature lets the user know whether or not they would have enough time to watch the video and take the quiz.
PROTOTYPE + TEST
Wireframes
Wire framing was used as a tool to lay out the forms and develop prototypes on how users would go through taking the quiz. Existing UI was taken into great consideration to get this as close to what was familiar to the user as possible.
The Shipped Quiz
Challenge #1
Moving and keeping the quiz at the front of Daily Tasks and incentivizing a higher than normal number of points for completing was put into the design, just under the tier progress.
This allows users to see that once completed, the quiz can put them over the edge in points to get to the next tier. This also gives the user higher chances of receiving more product in the future.
Challenge #2
Showing good and bad quality content in a soft and approachable way was done by not giving better or worse images any hierarchy in the selection. Partnering with developers, we were able to randomize the selection process, giving it an even playing field.
The user is not overwhelmed by the amount of choices, and can take their time to decide the best photo.
Challenge #3
Showing good UGC content early on and separated by the steps of the 3Cs, users are able to get a run-through of the information that they will be quizzed on right after.
Showing multiple images and adding the carousel icon proved to be a more in-depth way of holding the user's attention.
Challenge #4
Keeping the quiz minimalistic was paramount, with easy indicators of understanding if their guess was correct or not. The bottom navigation bar was also removed, so the user could focus solely on the quiz.
This follows with additional educational copy, helping the user understand why the correct answer is correct. Clear indicators on button copy also keeps the user on track.
HOW DID IT PERFORM?
Performance Measures
Verifying our success for the first round was imperative, and shed insights into how members are reacting to the quiz form. We saw great user engagement, a high completion rate, and a big increase in overall reviews left per member. This ties directly back to our business and user goals coinciding.
65K
Total Users Completing Quiz
+31%
Increase in Reviews
80%
Completion Rate Among Members
Influenster Style Guide
Influenster's existing style guide was used for consistency among other areas of the app, with Blue Velvet being the bold button color, and system error and success states for when selecting answers in the quiz. Similar typography was also used that mirrored other elements of the in-app experience.
Conclusion and Takeaways
This was a great first run for the User Generated Content Education. Seeing that high a number of users taking the quiz confirmed our initial research that users want and need guidance when it comes to taking product photo and video. In this exciting eCommerce space, finding new ways we can help members stay engaged and active on the platform is always our main goal.
Some of my next steps would be to:
and Interaction Designer