After one year since the launch of Monetize, the platform gained over 500 net new users.
The platform achieved a record-high annual customer retention of 82% among all company products.
We conducted a survey among 87 active users, resulting in a notable SUS score of 75.
Xstream.ly is a video streaming company with the goal of growing audience with engaging content. The company operates with a 'team of teams' structure, involving extensive cross-team collaborations with various internal and external roles.
Xstream.ly aims to rapidly acquire viewers with their branded app, but the significant development cost hinders its progress.
The sheer amount of manual work in curating, publishing, and monetizing video content greatly reduces efficiency.
Beacon greatly reduces overall costs by eliminating the need for software developers and developing apps for each platform.
Beacon allows creation of multiple apps with a single tool that accommodates diverse roles and workflows.
Beacon offers the most diverse pay models in the market to maximize customers’ revenue.
Understanding the product's goal of streamlining user workflow, I developed a job map from interview data. Then, I led a workshop with Project Managers and UX strategists to pinpoint focus areas.
Red dots represent priority levels, determined by the frequency or importance of the job.
The information architecture was structured to concentrate each role's workflows within their own module, while enabling flexible interactions across different modules.
The initial release prioritized the needs of content producers and product managers. It empowered them with tools to independently manage videos and viewer applications within their respective modules, while also facilitating cross-module collaboration.
Following the initial release, I spearheaded the validation of concepts aimed at streamlining Brandon the pricing manager’s workflow. Additionally, I crafted interaction and visual design to ensure usability, especially for tricky tasks.
After matching user and customer issues, I deconstructed the main job "monetizing videos" into micro jobs, then condensed these into two actionable UX goals aligned with our value propositions.
In the development process, we faced conflicting data concerning content monetization. Initial research indicated that the pricing manager was in charge of video monetization. However, fresh interviews I conducted for the Monetize module suggested that this responsibility lay with the video producer. This discord necessitated a crucial decision, as these two scenarios would entail radically different data structures and front-end designs.
Upon undertaking subsequent steps, it was discovered that the product primarily catered to small organizations where the content producer monetizes their content. Thus, after validating with customers, we chose to proceed in that direction.
Larger orgs
Monetizer makes sure the correct plans exist and content is associated to the correct plans
Small orgs
Product coordinator uploads content and assigns the content to plans at the same time.
In the ideation phase, the team was overwhelmed by research data, and the design process was blocked by the complexities of collaboration and workflows.
Using the job map as a guide, I broke down the primary job into four distinct micro-jobs, each with its own set of user flows. I assigned each flow to a Junior Designer, while I took on a flow myself. We then iterated on our respective flows based on user feedback gathered from usability tests, creating a collaborative and dynamic design process.
When we entered the design execution phase, the team was challenged by the complex data input and structure that a user needs to cope with in order to create a plan.
To address the complexity in data input, I spearheaded bi-weekly design sprints. In these sessions, designers selected relevant stories, collaborated with peers, project managers, and developers, conducted usability tests, and refined designs based on the gathered feedback.
Horizontal tabs
Invisible goal
Vertical tabs + stepper
Clear call-to-action and more flexibility
More dev work
The user sees all data inputs upfront.
More mental effort
Invisible content
The users chooses which option they need first, then add data.
Less mental effort
Better visibility
The user sees all data inputs upfront.
More mental effort
Invisible content
The user sees the data in a preview mode by default.
Less mental effort
Better visibility
I faced a flood of technical requirements requiring the collaboration of both teams. However, the current team structure resulted in a lack of joint effort.
With this step, I not only resolved longstanding issues in a 2-hour workshop, but also bridged two teams that had never previously collaborated, fostering future collaboration.
1. The pricing manager clicks on “Create plan”.
Plan creation and local saving occur only after the user fills in all fields and clicks "Create" on the next page, resulting in potential risk of losing data.
2. The pricing manager changes plan type on the plan detail page.
Confusion about type definitions prolongs task time.
The producer clicks on “Create plan” and selects monetization model.
The plan is created and saved with only the minimum required fields filled.
Risk prevention.
Confusion is resolved by providing description of each type.
The producer utilizes the side navigation to filter plans by type.
Mental effort is reduced with filtering.
More clicks
1. The pricing manager clicks on “Create plan”.
The producer can only associate one type of monetization model with the same videos.
Confusion about type definitions prolongs task time.
Lack of flexibility
Less friction for users with a simple pricing structure
The producer can associate different monetization model with the same videos under different rules.
Error prevention
Increased flexiblity
More friction for users with a simple pricing structure
Through a process of evaluating the actual doers of adding content to plan before embarking on solution generation, we redirected the development trajectory to ensure alignment with the actual buyers' needs.
Enhancing simplicity in the Saas space can be an admirable goal, but it is crucial to acknowledge that certain situations, such as crafting a SVOD plan, may demand a level of complexity. For tasks that occur infrequently and carry significant consequences, embracing a certain degree of intricacy can safeguard against errors and provide invaluable flexibility.
