New Feature Design Case Study

A preview of the final product

Desire to engage with their community

The option to start a group study within the platform encourages people to be more involved in the study and keep each other accountable. Group members receive an invitation, where they’ll be able to track study progress, receive reminders etc.

An easier way to discover content

Users are able to learn more about the different studies that others have completed, recommended or started and as a result makes it easier for users to discover content that’s relevant to them

Display of more relevant information

Users are a bit overwhelmed by the amount of content showing on the Home Page. By showing community metrics such as number of views and recommendations, users are able to learn how their community is reacting towards different content..

A more personalised experience

By setting up their own groups in the platform, users are able to personalise their group study experiences

It’s not just about my experience

It all started with working on this app that I use often and really value its content and brand

However, my own experiences doesn’t represent the experience of the RightNow Media users

User Interview participants

Therefore, I interviewed 6 participants who use the platform at least once a month to learn more about their experiences

Surprised by the % of frequent RightNow Media users

RightNow Media has often been promoted by my church, therefore I would have thought it would be easy to find user interview participants within my church communities

I was surprised to find that not a lot of people are actually using the platform, or use it often enough

In order to ensure I’m able to gain reliable insights, I did 2 rounds of screening via instagram story and google survey

View Competitive Analysis

From assumption to presumptions

Getting to know RightNow Media’s limitations better

View Affinity Mapping

Platform testing for additional insights

Apart from interviewing the 6 participants, I also got them to navigate through the mobile app by giving them 2 scenarios to observe how people engage with the platform

Platform testing scenarios

You are recently a bit overwhelmed by work and want to find a video that would help give you some guidance on overcoming this circumstance

Explore Christmas themed content to study and share with your friends

1. Desire for community engagements

100% participants shared the desire to have more community aspects added to the platform

Despite the content the platform offers are mainly for people to study in groups, the experience on the platform doesn’t offer features aimed for community engagements

Adding community features to the platform would improve the overall user journey

Compared to other needs, I prioritised adding community features to the existing platform as addressing other needs would only bring about small impacts

A new community page is added to the platform where users get to connect with others who go to the same church. Create groups with their friends and fellowship groups to do studies together

Users are also able to see different platform activities from other users within the same church community such as what studies they did, groups they created, content they recommended etc.

However, it is also important to take note of privacy preferences when it comes to community features

Users also have the option to set their activities to private and the same applies to group activities

2. Improving discoverability of content

It was evident from user interviews that searching content on the platform was more challenging than I expected, mainly because the search results weren’t showing information that would help users determine the quality and relevance of the study

Community Page gives users access to what studies others have done, their likes and comments

Users are also able to reference view and recommendation metrics when exploring a new series

This helps provide a more reliable, efficient and community based way of discovering content

3. More effective display of information

60% participants are overwhelmed by the amount of content showing on the Home Page

In addition, most of the title names aren’t showing the full name which makes it difficult for users to interpret the content at first glance

Video titles are displayed in 2 lines rather than 1 line

In addition, users are able to see view and recommendation metrics to help them learn more about how their community is responding to the different studies

4. A more personalised experience

80% participants mentioned how they wanted to have a more personalised experience on the platform. Especially how the Home Page features studies for Kids, Men or Parents that are irrelevant to some people

The church main page (or Island ECC page) now shows recommendations made by different groups within the church community

People who go to the same church would be able to find the recommendations relevant. Compared to the initial design showing only studies recommended by the church

From indecisive to precisive

With Irene (the user persona) in mind, I was able to come up with features focusing on adding a community aspect to the platform

I reminded myself to focus on a topic where I can improve the overall user journey instead of small impacts.

I decided to focus only on features that

Add a community aspect to the app

Some of the features include

Create groups, make friends, view other users’ comments & ratings, activities

70% participants shared a need for this

50% participants shared a need for this

Video series display to show full title name and ratings

50% participants shared a need for this

View Prioritisation Matirx

Making minimal changes to the existing sitemap

While adding the new features, I was also intentional about not making too many changes to the existing sitemap as I would want users to still find the interface familiar to them

The only change made was replacing the "Kids" page in the tab bar with the "Community" page