Optimising Envato Photo Author Portal: boosting success and reducing support
2022
Role
Lead Designer for the Author experience strategy and features design.
Team
Envato - Author team including:
Product Manager Lead,
Engineering Lead & team
Product Manager Lead,
Engineering Lead & team
Deliverables
Future concept & roadmap
Design system update
Visual design for seller's portal
Design system update
Visual design for seller's portal
Project overview
Photographers (authors) selling their work on Envato currently have access to a variety of legacy upload tools. Which made the uploading process convoluted and confusing. Also managing multiple asset management tools is challenging and time-consuming for the business, highlighting the need for a centralised upload tool for authors.
Additionally, authors often face confusion regarding to the review process - particularly in understanding review feedback and determining necessary corrections.
Additionally, authors often face confusion regarding to the review process - particularly in understanding review feedback and determining necessary corrections.
Solution
Centralise & optimise the photo management tools.
Outcome
Task success - task failure rate - reduced number of Zendesk helper tickets by 10%.
Engagement - average session length for a key action (uploaded, submitted, re-submitted, deleted) to be less comparing to the previous tool.
Happiness - overall satisfaction score to increase from 4.7 to 5.05+.
Leadership overview
Led a cross-functional design sprint where we explored different grid layout options. I facilitated workshops with the product team and developers to finalise the design direction, ensuring it aligned with technical constraints while improving the user experience.
Collaborated with the product manager to create the experience strategy & roadmap for the photo manager - for example, focus on improving the bulk upload process based on the severity of the pain-points and deprioritised the features that are less concerned by the authors like photo tagging.
Also led with the change-oriented mindset - for decisions around how the large number of photos are loaded and displayed, I made the decision to pivot to the alternative design patterns based on the technical effort and business impact.
Re-built the design language system and standards in the Author space, based on the new centralised photo manger solution. Used the systematic and scalable approach to make sure the patterns and functions can cater for other asset types like videos, audios and web page templates etc.
Phase 1 - Explore & define
PHASE 1 - EXPLORE & DEFINE
Understanding current behaviour
Interviews & synthesis
Interviewed the Authors, as well as the Authors Account Team members to understand the list of the pain-points.
Journey mapping
Mapped out the current Authors journey to further collect & analyse the pain-points.
SMEs interviews
Unpacked key problems, insights, and learnings from ongoing projects and existing research.
Agree on metrics
Proposed and agreed on the list of metrics and benchmarks for the solutions.
The various artefacts collected during the interviews & analysis phase including prioritisation matrix, customer journey map , SMEs pain-points and existing insights.
PHASE 1 - EXPLORE & DEFINE
Author personas
PHASE 1 - EXPLORE & DEFINE
Customer journey map
Phase 1 - Explore & define
Prioritised problems
Problem 1:
Authors have mentioned feeling confused, frustrated by technical issues, and generally dissatisfied with the upload process.
“I found the uploading process quite irritating… would be helpful if the site would automatically resize photos for the thumbnail…”
Because I can’t find rules how I can start upload my work, which format and etc.
Problem 2:
Authors are concerned about the review process, highlighting a lack of transparency, and a sense of discouragement.
11% Authors mentioned review as an issue.
Long wait times for review and inconsistent review results.
PHASE 1 - EXPLORE & DEFINE
Problems & pain-points
1.
Authors struggle to quickly locate the photos that need editing.
2.
The interface feels unclear and doesn’t provide enough helpful feedback.
3.
Authors want to understand why their photos are rejected so they can learn and improve.
4.
Authors would like to edit photos that are under review, published, or rejected, to easily fix any issues.
5.
55% authors rely on a workaround to edit the price in bulk.
6.
There's confusion about where and how to manage their photos.
7.
Prefer larger thumbnails to help them quickly find specific photos.
8.
How might we better engage authors to encourage them to sell more on our platform?
PHASE 1 - EXPLORE & DEFINE
Success metrics
Error reduction 10%
Reduce task failure rate - number of Zendesk helper tickets to be less than 5-15%.
Reduce micro-interaction errors - error clicks and rage clicks tracked on Crazyegg to be less than 5%.
Reduce micro-interaction errors - error clicks and rage clicks tracked on Crazyegg to be less than 5%.
Engagement uplift 12%
Decrease average session length for a key action (upload, submit, re-submit, delete) by 10-15%.
Monthly active authors using the tool to perform a key action remain the same.
Monthly active authors using the tool to perform a key action remain the same.
Happiness +0.5
Increase overall Author satisfaction score.
Increase the uploading and editing photos satisfaction score.
Increase the uploading and editing photos satisfaction score.
Phase 2 - Design
PHASE 2 - DESIGN
Divide & conquer - product roadmap
PHASE 2 - DESIGN
Analysis - Photo Lifecycle, Author Journey Map & Author Task Flow
Lifecycle diagram of how authors manage the photo asset
Journey map of the full time individual authors
Task flow of managing the photo assets
Phase 2 - Design
Problem 1 - upload is confusing
Outdated, complex upload tool, lagging behind competitors. 6% of Author satisfaction survey feedback highlights upload issues, 45% negative. 20% cite limits as a problem.
Solution - Intuitive upload tool
Make uploading functions easy-to-follow, versatile and automated.
Providing clear, consistent and standard instructions on upload; allow multiple ways to upload.
Automate manual tasks as much as possible (bulk actions, metadata to be extracted from files etc); give clear feedback and intuitive control around uploading.
Moderated user testing findings - upload tool (verbatim)
1.
As a large-scale content creator, I often upload images in batches and find the bulk editing feature incredibly efficient. It streamlines my workflow significantly, allowing me to make uniform changes across multiple images simultaneously.
2.
In my experience, I frequently need to adjust only a few elements in my uploads. The automated metadata handling is a standout feature for me, as it saves considerable time and reduces the need for manual input on common data points.
3.
The tag editing function in the Photo Manager has become an indispensable tool in my routine. Considering its frequent use, exploring ways to further automate this feature could be highly beneficial. Could we have suggested tags to be auto-applied in the future?
4.
Regarding the filtering options, I've found the 'date published' filter to be exceptionally useful. It's my go-to default for organizing and locating my images efficiently. This feature helps me keep track of my publishing schedule and manage my content effectively.
Phase 2 - Design
Problem 2 - review is discouraging
Long review times and inconsistent results, lacking clear, consistent feedback on rejections. 11% of Author satisfaction survey respondents flagged review issues, 45% of comments negative.
Solution - clear review status & feedback
Design a clean, minimalistic interface that emphasizes photos and review outcomes, blending functionality with aesthetics. Present reviews clearly through comments and visual highlights indicating areas for improvement.
Allow editing prices for multiple photos at the same time.
Provide easy filtering capability to find the photos that are need to be fixed. Provide guidelines during the upload, submission and after being rejected.
Moderated user testing findings - review & feedback
The system's quick photo identification for edits has streamlined our process. Larger thumbnails aid in easier photo selection, enhancing efficiency. Feedback on rejections offers valuable insights for improving photography skills. The flexible editing workflow allows adjustments at any stage, ensuring high-quality images before submission.
Phase 2 - Design
Opportunity - Incentivising, engaging and retaining authors
Long review times and inconsistent results, lacking clear, consistent feedback on rejections. 11% of AuthorSat respondents flagged review issues, 45% of comments negative.
Solution - upload and get rewarded!
Trial a reward mechanism to encourage quality photo assets and large number of uploads to encourage current performance.
Gamifying & rewards to encourage Authors to upload more quality photos.
A reward system contains different levels to incentivise and motivate Authors.
Moderated user testing findings - upload & get rewarded
The system's quick photo identification for edits has streamlined our process. Larger thumbnails aid in easier photo selection, enhancing efficiency. Feedback on rejections offers valuable insights for improving photography skills. The flexible editing workflow allows adjustments at any stage, ensuring high-quality images before submission.
Other Hi-fi design for the first release
Phase 3 - Launch & Learn
Phase 3 - launch & learn
Testing & learn
Weekly design reviews
Gathered and synthesised the previous qualitative researches & insights around customer segments, behaviours, pain-points.
Heuristic evaluations
Collated deep dive into data & insights with customer actions, pain points and players into a journey map
Moderated testing
Unpacked problems, insights and learnings from existing project and research,
Launch & learn
Collected business and experience metrics throughout the journey and identified the current benchmark of FY23Q3.
Phase 3 - launch & learn
Continuous monitoring
We adopted a continuous releases model to deliver and iterate on features. The first release (upload and submit photos) has been made available to photo authors on 8th August 2022.
On the one hand, we will use Google Analytics and Crazyegg to track authors demographics, interactions and micro interactions in the quantitative way.
On the other hand, we will roll out a few versions of surveys (via Intercom) to benchmark and track authors’ satisfaction scores over key use cases (upload, submit, edit and delete).
Phase 3 - launch & learn
Lessons learnt
Different ways to get buy-ins from Engineering team - Envato and the Author team are quite tech-driven. There are 20+ Engineers in the Author team but only me as the designer. From the beginning of the project, I have realised the importance of collaborating and getting buy-ins from Engineering team.
The methods I have tried and worked well are:
Invite Engineers to co-design or ideate for the problem space
Involve Engineers in the workshops with business stakeholders to understand the concepts and logics
When in doubt, refer to the project goals and success metrics
Use storytelling to voice out the authors’ needs
Share live examples of the expected interactions and animations for the handover
Thank you
A heartfelt thank you to the incredible designers, engineers, PMs, marketing, and author support teams who worked together on enhancing Envato's author experience. The true spirit of collaboration across all teams made this fast-paced, iterative project both rewarding and enjoyable. A special thanks to the Author community for their honesty and eagerness to share valuable insights—your feedback was instrumental in shaping our work.
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