The Product
SMS Factory allows partners and resellers to white label a text messaging platform for their users.
Project Duration
July 2021 - August 2021
The Problem
With so many social media channels available, influencers don’t have a way to connect with followers all in one place.
The Goal
Allow influencers to create a page that followers can use to opt-in and receive text messages from them.
My Role
UX designer from conception to delivery.
My Responsibilities
Create personas, user-journey mapping, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, iterating on designs, and developing design QA.
Understanding the user
During my research in speaking with influencers, I empathized with the difficulties that they have reaching out to all their followers in various social media channels. It's an issue to bring followers from one social media platform to another, especially when followers are comfortable in a specific one. A fear is that these influencers will not be able to grow beyond their main social media channel being used. Influencers use services such as Linktree or create websites to put in their bios hoping to connect with their followers through other means. However, having a website or email list to update followers hasn't been successful enough for engagement.
Persona: Problem Statement
Erin is an influencer and podcast host who needs an affordable and easy way to reach out to her followers so they know exactly when new podcast episodes are released.
Frustrations
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Decreased follower engagement
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Is tough creating content for all social media platforms that is successful
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Not a clear understanding of why users unfollow
Goals
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Maintain podcast audience
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Grow podcast audience
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Communicate with followers in a single place
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Categorize the audience in a more granular way
User journey map
Erin’s journey map revealed that adding an opt-in page feature would be ideal to help influencers bridge the gap between social media platform and text messaging.
Ideation
The drafts of each screen have specific elements with asterisks on the side signaling that they were used in the refined version shown on the right. The elements allow diminishing user pain points when creating an opt-in page
Starting the design
Digital wireframes
Upon completing the ideation phase with paper wireframes, I moved on to crafting digital wireframes that center around enabling users to personalize their opt-in page.
This section focuses on adding the content of the page header, influencer image, CTA line, and additional fields.
This section focuses on the option to add premade backgrounds or the ability to add your own.
This section shows a preview of the page customizations.
Low-fidelity prototype
The main purpose of my low-fidelity prototype is to facilitate user-driven creation of their opt-in page by allowing them to customize its options.
Refining the design
Based on stakeholder feedback, I made the following changes:
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Removed additional CTA line
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The pre-selected name and email field are now disabled by default
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Added a delete icon for the uploaded image
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Finalized the submission button as “Join my list.”
High-fidelity prototype
My high-fidelity prototype iterates from stakeholder feedback.
Takeaways
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Sitemap: The biggest challenge was to keep the page from scrolling as it would decrease the main action we wanted the follower to take, meaning fill out the form. This is why some options such as the submit button can’t be customized and there aren’t additional options for content. Yet, the user still can make the page their own.
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What I learned: Defining which options were going to be customizable and which didn’t - without having the user realize - taught me the importance of how design can make things simple for users. Trusting that those design decisions would make the platform more efficient to use.
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Teamwork: It was a pleasure to work with our stakeholders in helping them bring this vision for their clients. They provided clear details which allowed me to go through the design thinking approach with ease and bring that to our development team. They were able to make this happen in a short time due to our team planning and organization.
Status
The opt-in page, which was launched in August 2021, is catering not only to influencers but also to a diverse range of clients across various industries. This tool is utilized across different sectors, from doctor offices to real estate groups, to build a subscriber base. Its design highlights its adaptability and effectiveness in capturing the interest and engagement of audiences in diverse professional settings.