about
In 2014, Podium was a point solution that gave local businesses the power to manage their online reviews. But by 2023, active usage was slowing and threatening the business. I was part of a large effort aimed at revolutionizing our onboarding experience for a rapidly expanding platform.
This is a snack-sized sample. View the full case study here.
outcomes
Onboarding boosted 64% to 77%
Task completion rate boosted from 11% to 23%
Fast follows: Additionally, we set the stage to bring in insights and product promotions in future iterations.
Project Goals
1. Streamline onboarding to boost activation (10i14d) and reduce churn
2. Create a design that scales to our new product features and expansions.
3. Educate and inform on platform-wide value
my role
I worked alongside a product manager, a design manager, a director of content and collaborated with a design team member. Additionally, we had points of input from senior design leadership and marketing teams.
I led the design of the homepage experience between March of 2023 and May of 2023 and collaborated with a designer on the early content structure and support interface. The new experience launched in June of 2023.
kickoff
We had ideas about where Podium’s users were experiencing friction and failing to activate, but we didn’t have complete conviction about where we could make the most impact. To inform our brainstorming, we collected user insights from interviews.
competitive research
How much of a guiding presence was enough? To inform how we might answer some of these opportunities in patterns users could recognize, we ran a quick competitive audit of platforms of a similar scale and similar user base.
reframing the problem
We needed a way to condense activation tasks and make them comprehensible and accessible, despite them being about vastly disconnected parts of the product. As a team, we began to revisit the same three themes as we brainstormed.
exploration
Our conceptualization wasn’t enough - to flesh out our confidence in our approach, we explored a few variations of executing these strategies, then narrowed in on a few high-fidelity prototypes.
decision matrix
reductionist theory
With several types of content, tasks to be done, and metrics to introduce, we worked cross funtionally with other teams to reduce and focus the content we were asking users to engage with.
design decisions explained
As a result of the project, we developed a feature-rich resource hub to facilitate seamless onboarding and adoption, catering to both self-serve new customers and sales-guided demonstrations.
results
This effort led to improved customer retention, ultimately driving higher engagement and increased platform value.
Reflections:
Looking back, I think establishing a north star earlier on in the process would have helped us prioritize decision making down the line where there were multiple competing objectives.