Roadmap
Through an extensive research phase, including user interviews, UX audits, technology and competitor analysis, we gained valuable insights into feature discovery, user behaviours, pain points, and needs.
The planned process for this project was as follows:
Research
- User Interviews
- Heuristic Evaluation
Ideation
- Data Analysis Insights
- Current User Flow
- Sprint Planning
UX Design
- Determining Pain Points
- Problem Definition
- Determining suitable interventions using nudge theory
User Testing
- User Testing evaluation & analysis
- Conclusions & Refinement plan
Visual Design
- Elements & Components
- Micro interactions
- Hi – Fi Designs
Research Insights
The observations were derived from Primary Research conducted by the research team and the reason for Primary research was because we wanted a first hand data around the behaviours and patterns of the users while interacting with the app.
Inadequate Onboarding
- Onboarding Complexity: Users find the initial onboarding process overly complex, which results in them missing out on the features available to them as paid subscribers.
- Limited Feature Introduction: The onboarding fails to effectively introduce and highlight the array of premium features, leaving users unaware of the value they receive with their subscription.
Lack of Feature Visibility
- Cluttered Interface: Users face challenges navigating the cluttered interface, as essential features are not prominently displayed or are buried among non-essential elements.
- Absence of Prominent Signposts: Important features lack clear signposts or visual cues, making it difficult for users to distinguish premium content from free content.
Absence of Personalization
- Generic Content Delivery: Users receive content recommendations that lack personalisation, making it challenging to discover relevant premium content tailored to their interests.
- Limited User Profile Integration: The app does not effectively leverage user profiles and preferences to curate feature recommendations, resulting in a missed opportunity to enhance user discovery.
Prime User Persona
Name: Prahalad Krishnamurthy
Age: 35
Occupation: Chief Business officer
Income: ₹96,00,000 per year
Education: Master's degree in Business Administration
Family Status: Married with two children, aged 6 and 8
Personality: Organised, detail-oriented, busy, and goal-driven
Bio
Prahalad is a busy marketing director who is constantly on the go. He has a demanding job that requires her to stay informed about the latest business news and trends. He values his time and is always looking for ways to be more productive and efficient.
He is married with two children, and balances his work and family life by being highly organised and detail-oriented. He sets goals for himself and works hard to achieve them. Despite his busy schedule, he makes time for his family and is involved in his children's activities.
Prahalad has a Master's degree in Business Administration and is highly educated. He has a high income of ₹96,00,000 per year and is financially comfortable. He is always looking for ways to grow his knowledge and improve his skills.
How he uses ET:
- Prahalad is a daily user of The Economic Times.
- He alternates between the print and digital editions, using his tablet or computer.
- Typically begins his day by reading the latest news and articles.
- Uses the information he gathers for work-related discussions with colleagues.
- Enjoys sharing articles with his network of colleagues and friends.
- Engages with The Economic Times for both personal and professional purposes.
Why he subscribes to ET:
- Prahalad's subscription to The Economic Times is driven by his desire to stay informed about current business news and trends.
- He sees it as a means to advance his career.
- Values the publication for its high-quality journalism and comprehensive coverage.
- Appreciates the well-researched and thought-provoking nature of the articles.
- Considers the insights into the business world provided by the publication to be valuable.
What he Values in ET:
- Prahalad highly values The Economic Times for its high-quality journalism and in-depth coverage.
- He appreciates the meticulous attention to detail and thorough research evident in each article.
- The insights into the business world are of significant value to him.
- He finds the information from ET valuable in both personal and professional aspects of his life.
Current User Journey
In order to understand the current flow of feature discovery and the frictions involved I mapped out the User Journey of the above persona, capturing essential factors such as where does the most of the features are discovered and how can I improve the experience on top of it.
Stage
Awareness
Onboarding
Content discovery
Engagement
Subscription benifits
- Recurring memory from the first time signup
- Informed over E-mail, whatsapp and other external notifications
- Comes over the platform after all the external nudges.
- Tries to find out the exact placement of the mentioned benefits and look for the placement of those.
- Gets engaged by reading, commenting and sharing the articles that he finds value in.
- As he continues to use ET he begins to acknowledge the benefits of his subscription, including in-depth analysis and coverage, personalised experiences, and cumbersome access to high-quality information.
- To avail the benefits by easily identifying them later in the product.
- Get familiar with the entire architecture of the design and product.
- Figure out where the subscriber only content are placed in the cluster of articles.
- Have a smooth reading experience while on the page.
- Have as less of interventions as possible for the user.
- Recognise it the next time he comes on the platform
- The platform should help me signify the placement of the benefits.
- Push notifications
- Emailers
- Whatsapp messages
- Social media posts
- Application loading
- Homepage
- Homepage
- ET Prime Newsletters
- Notifications
- ET Prime Tab
- Markets
- Wealth
- Stocks
- Homepage
- Homepage
- Today's paper (above Navigation)
- Markets
- Stocks reports
- Multi channel nudge
- Load time of the homepage
- Lack of Guided tour of the core areas of the page
- Quick feature discovery
- Recognised the feature but failed to discover later
- No map or guide for next feature after one feature is discovered.
- Users fails to discover the benefits as a returning user.
Note: Moving to solutioning of the problem we can identify and prioritise the feature we would straight up solve for. Plotting a graph as per the frequency of benefit usage and the difficulty in the discovery of the same.
List of features:
- Today's Paper
- Prime Stories
- In depth 40+ stock reports
- Newsletters
- Gifting
- Livestreams
Note:
- The features mentioned are solely the paid features for the users and solves for their discovery.
- The prioritisation of the solution would go as per the highly used features and the respective friction caused by the user in their journey.
- 40+ Stock reports
- Prime Stories
- Today's Paper
- Live Stream
- Gifting
- Newspaper
Post survey and validation with the existing data, we have a clear problem to solve i.e.
- Solve for how can we help users to discover prime stories, today's paper faster with least time spent on identifying the correct positioning of the nudges
Pain Points
08. Figuring out the pain points from the user flow
1. Multi-Channel Nudge:
- Lack of consistent guidance across various channels, leading to confusion.
- Users not receiving timely nudges to discover and engage with essential features.
2. Load Time of the Homepage:
- Slow loading times hinder the user experience, causing frustration.
- Users might abandon the platform due to lengthy load times.
3. Guided Tour of Core Areas:
- Absence of guided tours makes it challenging for users to navigate the core areas.
- New users struggle to understand the platform's layout and functionality.
4. Quick Feature Discovery:
- Users find it difficult to quickly discover and understand the value of premium features.
- Slow feature discovery may lead to underutilisation of paid subscription benefits.
5. Recognised But Failed to Discover Later:
- Users may initially recognise premium features but struggle to locate them later, resulting in frustration.
- This inconsistency in feature discoverability impacts user satisfaction.
6. No Map or Guide for Next Feature:
- Users lack a clear roadmap or guide for discovering features sequentially, making it challenging to explore the platform comprehensively.
7. Users Fail to Discover Benefits as Returning Users:
- Returning users may not fully grasp the platform's benefits, affecting their engagement and retention.
- A lack of continuous value discovery may lead to users disengaging from the platform.
User Goals
- Seamless discovery: In a page full of content Prahlad wants to seamlessly discover the prime benefits included in his subscription.
- External and internal consistency: Prahlad also wants a uniformity of consistency between what he has been communicated and the final delivery of content.
- Suitable identification of Benefits: Prahlad is curious and eager to learn, and want to learn extensively about the benefits that he has got and how can he identify those within the product ecosystem.
By now, that we already know that a user is unable to discover the benefits that they paid for, We might use the nudge theory and use one of the heuristics of "Recognition over Recall" to help the features get discovered.
Using Nudge Theory we marked the suitable interventions for the triggers that would lead a user recognise the benefits and utilise them
- Home Page
- ET Prime Tab
- Profile
- Tags With Tabs
- Wealth
- Industry
- In App Notifications
- Navigation
Proposed Solution
1. Multi-Channel Nudge:
S1
Have Internal Nudges instead of external Nudges, using nudge theory and place them strategically where most of the content is discovered.
2. Guided Tour of Core Areas:
S2
While we understood, pushing the solution at once could be overwhelming for the users, We went ahead and used coach marks as soon as the user lands on the page
3. Quick Feature Discovery:
S3
In the previous solutions we discovered that the benefits were lost in the existing articles, so we used signifiers which acted as immediate signifiers for the stories.
4. Recognised But Failed to Discover Later:
S4
Usage of Signifiers would always create strong affordance and bring the attention to the user that they are reading the story which is for prime users. Apart from that we also have introduced better navigation in form of pills which will help to quickly navigate between the various features.
5. No Map or Guide for Next Feature:
S5
As we understood how did content discovery happened we have strategically placed nudges at points where users lands first and used progressive disclose to help them discover the next set of features.
6. Users Fail to Discover Benefits as Returning Users:
S6
With better navigation on the Prime Page we would mitigate the problem of users having a hard time figuring out the features that they paid for.
