Giide

Finding a better way to distribute and showcase Giides across multiple social media platforms. 

Project Overview

Problem

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.

Solution

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.

Team

Neha Bokhari, Jeremy Chong, Lily Chun | UX/UI Designers

Bonnie Sweet | Product Designer for Giide

Timeline

4 weeks

Tools

Figma, Miro, Zoom

Research

Customer Journey • Empathy Map • How Might We Statements • User Personas • Pain Points

Competitive Analysis (Loom • Spotify • Vimeo)

Findings

  • 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

My contribution: analyzing How Might We statements

Competitive Analysis

Features • Ratings • SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)

Next, we conducted a competitive analysis of three apps that were similar to Giide:

  • Vimeo, a video-hosting app like YouTube

  • Spotify, a music-streaming app

  • Loom, a screen-sharing app

We compiled a list of notable features of each app, assigned them ratings, and analyzed their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and strengths.

Findings

  • Vimeo allows users to personalize their sharing options

  • Spotify has a great sharing interface and recognizable brand

  • Loom has great social features that make users want to interact with it

My contribution: Conducting a competitive analysis of Loom

Ideate

Crazy 8s • Solution Sketches • Postup • Disney Creative Strategy

 

In order to have the most variety of ideas to choose from, we each conducted Crazy 8s sketches and sketched 3 solution sketches. We adopted one feature from each of our sketches:

  • Personalized sharing preferences

  • Customizable thumbnail

  • Transcription/closed captioning feature

My contribution: closed captioning feature

 

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.

Findings

  • The Dreamer

    • Giides are an innovative and new type of media

    • Giides integrate seamlessly into any platform

    • Giides make audio more consumable for the web

  • The Realist

    • Brand recognition is still needed

    • Some features might require backend work

  • The Critic

    • Brand recognition may not be achieved if there is not a universal template

    • Users may still not want to interact with Giide

Prototyping

Lo-fi Prototype • Hi-fi Prototype

Lo-fi Prototype

Together over Zoom, we built a low-fidelity prototype of the journey a user would follow from recording/uploading an audio to publishing it.

Hi-Fi Prototype

For this phase, we worked separately on all the screens and came together to discuss them at the end of the week.

Features

  • To build recognizability across all social media: customizable thumbnails for different social media feeds

  • To boost brand identity: Giide-themed thumbnail

  • To encourage interactivity: closed captioning options to help users read along

  • To improve social media recognition: personalized sharing options

My contribution: First two steps (recording and connecting links) and step 4 (closed captioning options).

Testing

2 Unmoderated • 4 Moderated In-Person • 3 Iterated In-Person

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.