Create a product from 0 to 1 to improve experience by 15% & reduce support cost by 12%
Team
0 to 1 platform design, vision, design system
Role
Lead designer in author (sellers) space
Year - timeline
2022 - 1 month
Background
Envato is a subscription-based marketplace, focusing on growing in-demand quality content to attract more customers
Envato Elements offers a unique value proposition: a medium subscription fee for unlimited downloads across a diverse asset range. Our strategy focuses on expanding quality content that's in demand, ensuring competitive and sustainable earnings for authors.
Why this project
Current upload & review experience have low satisfactions, high support cost & high maintenance effort
Enhancing the upload and review experience is critical, as evidenced by authors' low satisfaction (average rating 4.7) and the frequent challenges they face, with around 350 related Zendesk tickets each month. The current first upload average time of 30 minutes highlights inefficiencies.
Current emotion journey of Authors
Who to focus on
Individual photo authors as the target segment, for it being the largest author group using the current upload & review tool
Outcome
A brand new portal for smooth and intuitive upload, review and management of photos
Bulk upload with clear success or error indications
Detailed & constructive review feedback to build the trust and increase efficiency
Impact
A new portal in 2 months - increased author satisfaction for upload & review, shortened the upload time, and reduced the support cost and effort
Author satisfaction on
upload
Average session length for
upload & submit
Zendesk helper tickets
The challenge
HMW make the upload & review process for photo authors more efficient & transparent?
For the how-might-we, I used quantitative methods like author surveys and tool analytics, and qualitative methods including interviews and forum insights. Collaborating with PMs and engineers, we prioritized issues based on impact and feasibility to enhance the upload and review process effectively.
How I got there
Design process overview
Double diamond process is modified to unpack the problems efficiently, form a vision for the team, as well as design and iterate.
Leadership challenge - deliver, test & refine every 2 weeks
I led collaborative efforts with Product Managers to develop and align the vision and roadmap for a new portal. By guiding cross-functional teams and working closely with Engineers, we implemented bi-weekly delivery, testing, and refinement of portal features. This agile approach accelerated development, enhanced team synergy, and increased project transparency.
Design principles
Distilled design principles for the new author photo portal, future-proofing for the other types of assets.
Solution 1
Intuitive upload tool with streamlined steps, clear guidance & real-time validations
The redesigned Envato upload interface tackles key issues with:
· An intuitive drag-and-drop upload area with straightforward File Transfer Protocol instructions for bulk uploads, reducing the need for administrative intervention and streamlining the process.
I no longer have to worry about rejections due to format or size errors, and the straightforward bulk upload instructions have streamlined my workflow significantly.
Upload with clear guidelines to prevent errors
Solution 2
Auto-populate metadata like tags to save Authors’ effort
We introduced auto-populating metadata using image recognition and machine learning to generate relevant tags, enhancing searchability and consistency across photo collections and allowing authors to focus more on creating content. This marks Envato's first use of AI-enabled capabilities, unlocking potential for future features.
The automated tags generation is a standout feature for me, as it saves considerable time and reduces the need for manual input on common data points.
Auto-generate tags to reduce manual effort
Solution 3
Photos management throughout lifecycle for faster photos editing & re-publishing
A new feature manages photos throughout their lifecycle by:
· Providing centralised storage for easy access at any lifecycle stage.
· Offering advanced search capabilities, including filtering by date, tags, or other metadata.
· Implementing version control to track changes and ensure the latest photo versions are available.
Solution 4
Transparent review status & feedback
A transparent review status and feedback feature addresses authors’ concerns about unclear rejection reasons by:
· Offering real-time visibility into submission status.
· Providing detailed, constructive feedback to help authors understand review decisions.
· Promoting engagement and building trust through a transparent review process.
Design process
A simplified version of how I got there
Double diamond process is modified to unpack the problems efficiently, form a vision for the team, as well as design and iterate.
Other key updates
Vision for authors future journey & new grid for the design language system
Throughout the project, I collaborated with the PM to align on the future vision for the author journey and portal, proposing a new grid system to enhance the portal’s usability, feasibility, and scalability.
Reflection
Accelerating design through collaboration, and user-centric alignment
Bi-weekly releases: high-pressure, high reward
Adopting a two-week release cycle accelerated feature refinement and integration of user feedback, enhancing product quality swiftly.
Collaboration and co-design with engineers: a creative synergy
Collaborating closely with engineers merged design insights with technical execution, leading to innovative and user-focused solutions.
User-centric alignment: bringing everyone closer to the authors
Focusing all team members on the authors' perspectives ensured alignment and drove a unified, effective approach to product development.