Talebinds is a movie, show, anime, and video game focused app; with trailers, personal and shareable playlists and soundtracks. Talebinds first company strategy was to offer users a free product and receive a healthy user base of free users. After completing this strategy successfully, the second strategy is now to create a new stream of revenue from the same free users and new users. This will be done by including a premium based model to allow users to subscribe and pay monthly.
I conducted a 90 hour plan with six different phases that starts with user research, designing, testing, designing, testing again and designing.
• Phase 1 Discovery
• Phase 2 Design
• Phase 3 Validate
• Phase 4 Design
• Phase 5 Validate
• Phase 6 Design
The business goal is to create an opportunity for new users to subscribe to the premium services upon registering in the sign up flow; and for returning free users to become paid while using the product and logged in. The user needs a compelling reason to subscribe by benefiting from extra features.
This problem is particularly challenging because the free users can be overwhelmed by the amount of times that they are asked to pay for our premium services. Another challenge is where to include this in the user interface and user experience within our iOS and android mobile apps. This has to be done carefully because a consequence can be free users abandoning the platform, instead of converting and paying for the premium services.
I administered the user research, created user flows, design and tested users remotely to meet the company’s targeted users. I created sketches, prototypes, medium and high fidelity wireframes to test on those remote users, and made design iterations based on the remote user results.
• 18-24 years old
• Very tech savvy- they are on their phones for several hours a day
• Very budget conscious
• This type of media is a very important part of their livesAll Nutrition Expertise
Photoshop
Illustrator
Sketch
Miro
Invision
Ten Unmoderated User Tests
Five Unmoderated User Tests
Is the targeted user willing to subscribe to a premium feature?
Is the targeted user going to pay for a subscription in the sign-in flow or within the product? How would a user with a tight budget subscribe?
The first phase was research which consisted of writing a research plan, online secondary research, and a written summary. The reason I chose online secondary research was to get the most information in the amount of time that was given. A written summary was great to summarize the findings of the secondary research plan.
The findings were that the features have to benefit the user for a better user experience or higher quality experience. For example, providing a smoother user experience or higher quality music. Eliminating ads is another common premium feature from other competitors. The free users will be able to use the service but with barriers for them to upgrade to premium.
Also, a user should have subtle reminders that a premium feature exists with the user flow. This can be included in the account settings, when an audio file is playing or during signing in or signing up. There is also a price limitation for ages 18-24 because the majority of people in this age are students. Especially those who are tech savvy. The competitor would have to be Spotify because they offer a very low price with bundled television services like Hulu and Showtime. Another finding was to include a free trial to convince a user to sign up for premium services.
The second phase required user flows, sketching and creating medium fidelity wireframes. The user flows made it a lot smoother to create the sketches. I ended up going straight to the medium fidelity wireframes to be able to get more out of unmoderated remote user testing. The first user flow allows new users to sign up for premium and for returning users too. The second user flow is for free account users to convert to premium. The first and second user flow meets the business goal.
The third phase was to write a test script, do remote testing, and write a summary based on the user testing. The reason I went for unmoderated user testing is because the targeted users were ages 18-24 and finding users at the age the fastest would be doing them remotely. I used UserTesting to test five users that were the ages of 18-24, advanced web expertise, and located in the United States.
The majority of highly advanced web users (tech savvy) would listen to a soundtrack. With this design I ended up placing subtle ways for a user to upgrade to premium. A successful design was the pick a plan, where users are required to choose a plan after signing in or signing up. Another successful design was the premium tab because users were able to immediately tell where to upgrade if they wanted to.
With the findings it was confirmed that the majority of users do have Spotify and are students. They dislike ads and would pay a premium to have them removed. Allowing users to try the service for free for a month was a way to get them to subscribe to premium.
The update screen was not well perceived. This page was skipped a lot and not read by the majority of users because of the heavy amount of text. This screen is meant to let users know that Talebinds is offering an optional subscription plan. Also offering movies, shows, game info and soundtracks was insufficient to compete against competitors. That is why I ended up including anime shows and soundtracks later. It was also difficult for users to know how to find movies, shows, video games and soundtracks all in one tab. Also users were saying the premium service was high.
The fourth phase was to modify the design to a high fidelity wireframe based on the user testing results. I ended up changing the introduction screens to make more sense of what the app offers. Prices were decreased to see if users would subscribe to premium more and extending the trial to two months was changed. The updated screen was a lot easier to read. I also added a green lock with the word “Secured” in the school login screen to provide more trust. Adding anime shows and soundtracks was added to see if it was more appealing to the targeted users and to compete with competitors.
UNiDAYS is the world’s leading Student Affinity Network, connecting a global student audience with relevant brands and services. More students are becoming familiar with UniDays and including this brand was important for users to feel comfortable inserting their school account information to login.
Based on this round of user testing, a search tab function and my library tab would be next product release to work on.
The fifth phase was modifying and adding to the test script, remote user testing and written summary of the results. I ended up adding tasks and rearranging questions to prevent the user being influenced by the prototype. That helped improve responses and know what people see in premium services and how much are they willing to spend on premium.
I conducted an unmoderated user testing with ten users. Five users on UserTesting.com and five users on Trymyui.com. I ended up choosing the same audience for UserTesting.com, but for Trymyui.com I chose both medium to high advanced users. (explain) The reason was to confirm that the majority of highly advanced web users (tech savvy) would listen to music. The majority of medium advanced users were not really into soundtracks, video games or anime.
People mentioned that the price was way too low for the amount of content offered within the app after having decreased the prices. After changing the updated screen to less text, I was able to confirm that it was being read and not skipped. More users are aware of UniDays and know that this company allows for students to get better offers in services. All users thought it was a very easy process to checkout for premium services. Users continue to want to pay for no ads which seemed to be the most important. Downloading content was another benefit that was paid more attention to more this time. Users also liked how two months free were offered.
The majority of users did not have a device to play 4K UHD, so that extra feature was not beneficial for users ages 18-24. Only three users out of ten had a 4K television. This time I included a lot more screens for users to upgrade to test the waters. This backfired on users getting annoyed by the number of times they saw upgrade to premium or try it for free. This gave me better insight of where to keep them and where to remove them.
Important for users when they don't have a connection and for traveling.
Users are bothered by ads and would pay premium memebership to eliminate them.
There was a significant increase of satisfaction when comparing one month free trial to a two month trial.
Majority of users 18-24 don’t have a device to play this video quality, but some are highly interested in this quality of videos.
Users prefered higher quality sound than video and would pay extra for this feature.
Majority of targeted users 18-24 were students, student premium will be $7.49.
The last phase is to modify based on the last user testing results. I felt I made the user testing very difficult for the user and for next time I would make it a lot less difficult and shorten the tasks. I ended up changing the price back to 14.99 for premium and 7.49 for students. Users were comfortable paying a maximum of ten dollars for premium.
Users really enjoyed the user interface of it. I learned to keep the upgrade to premium options subtle for the user. Including an option to pick a plan after a user signs in or signs up in the app was a huge success. Users didn’t get bothered by this screen and often chose a plan. Users still had the freedom to choose a free account. This met one of the business objectives, which was for a user to be able to choose premium once signing up.
I ended up taking off the premium tab with the media screen because that tab can be used for more media information instead. The media screens will now include information, video, and soundtrack. Another reason is because there is already a premium tab for users to access quickly. Character information was also added because users believed to find this valuable. I also added a subtle upgrade to premium where the quality of video or sound is shown. These design additions met the last business goal, which was for a returning user to convert to premium.
Overall, the user will be able to subscribe to premium if they are a new user or recurring one. These users can convert when they sign up or sign in, or when they are using the product. This meets the overall business goals successfully.
Additionally, the call to actions displayed and ways to influence users are now subtle enough for users to not feel overwhelmed with this message. The benefits offered for the premium services are sufficient for users to convert to the paid model. The target user is met and that is why there will be a premium student choice offered to get more users from the ages of 18-24.
Users can now filter foods that are vegan, gluten-free, non genetically modified foods, and much more.
Users will be able to do multiple functions such as add to favorites and diary, share and have their own favorite list.
Users will be able to do multiple functions such as add to favorites and diary, share and have their own favorite list.
After this design iteration, filtering by genres and categorization of the content would be next.
