A content creation tool to enhance creator's derivative assets.
To create a tool that allows users to make Social media content with their uploaded assets. To expansion of Issuu's Design System maturity by building industry standard components.
Design Landscape
A go to market MVP. Scalable, Industry-standard components to be used in other features within Issuu's platform.
As the UX designer in a team with one product manager and five engineers, I facilitated workshops to clarify the problem and brainstorm solutions. I coordinated and conducted user tests to understand why the user uses the product and what jobs they need to have done. To understand pain points and document insights for the research, I synthesized the research in action statements, which I presented to the team and key stakeholders. I constructed prototypes for iterations and created documentation for implementation and the Design System.
This project was part of a high-level initiative called “Getting our House in Order.” Issuu’s former design department had disbanded, and there was little documentation about the existing implementations and neglected areas of the product. Therefore, we needed to refactor the design debt to optimize the journey. The solution to this initiative was to create and implement a design system to break up a part of the user journey into manageable spaces.
The user journey was split between 3 primary spaces. Each space had a product manager, a designer, and a team of engineers. Space 1: Entry Point: The focus was user registration, upselling to premium plans, and encouraging content uploads. Space 2: User Engagement:
After account creation and content upload, this space connected users to flipbook features and introduced content creation tools. Space 3: Content Creation This space was dedicated to developing intuitive and competitive tools for content creation. Social Post was integrated into this space.
I inherited this project from two designers who had left the company during an advanced implementation stage. The existing solution was low-fidelity and incomplete. It lacked fully developed designs, adequate consideration of different user scenarios, and thorough user testing. Despite these challenges being unknown to the rest of the company, I received substantial support from the design department.
I communicated the project’s shortcomings to non-design stakeholders, clarifying that the current trajectory was unlikely to meet our goals. After several consultations, I spearheaded a series of workshops to address these issues, resulting in three main objectives:
Development Landscape
Optimize the solution to align with or surpass industry standards.
Define value proposition of each feature.
Define the value proposition of Social Post to ensure the solution’s effectiveness.
Expand our design system component library in order to update other features efficiently.
WIP
WIP
The Maelstrom
We designed components to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and to be versatile enough for integration into other solutions. Notably, components from the Social Tool were incorporated into Issuu’s Articles feature and the link & video editor. Templates - Provides the ability to format content for the intended platform. Publication - The assets from a flip books that have been uploaded to issuu. Uploads - Allow users to upload assets from cloud or hardrive. Text - Users can add additional text fields to the canvas.
Closing Thoughts
4 rounds of user tests.
A content creation tool to enhance creator's derivative assets.
Objective
To create a tool that allows users to make Social media content with their uploaded assets. To expansion of Issuu's Design System maturity by building industry standard components.
Results
A go to market MVP. Scalable, Industry-standard components to be used in other features within Issuu's platform.
Role
As the UX designer in a team with one product manager and five engineers, I facilitated workshops to clarify the problem and brainstorm solutions. I coordinated and conducted user tests to understand why the user uses the product and what jobs they need to have done. To understand pain points and document insights for the research, I synthesized the research in action statements, which I presented to the team and key stakeholders. I constructed prototypes for iterations and created documentation for implementation and the Design System.
Before
After
Key Objectives
Optimize the solution to align with or surpass industry standards.
Define value proposition of each feature.
Define the value proposition of Social Post to ensure the solution’s effectiveness.
Expand our design system component library in order to update other features efficiently.
Solution Impact
WIP
WIP
WIP
A Flowchart for Context.
Process
5 iterations
4 rounds of user tests.
Understanding the Problem
This project was part of a high-level initiative called “Getting our House in Order.” Issuu’s former design department had disbanded, and there was little documentation about the existing implementations and neglected areas of the product. Therefore, we needed to refactor the design debt to optimize the journey. The solution to this initiative was to create and implement a design system to break up a part of the user journey into manageable spaces.
The user journey was split between 3 primary spaces. Each space had a product manager, a designer, and a team of engineers. Space 1: Entry Point: The focus was user registration, upselling to premium plans, and encouraging content uploads. Space 2: User Engagement:
After account creation and content upload, this space connected users to flipbook features and introduced content creation tools. Space 3: Content Creation This space was dedicated to developing intuitive and competitive tools for content creation. Social Post was integrated into this space.
I inherited this project from two designers who had left the company during an advanced implementation stage. The existing solution was low-fidelity and incomplete. It lacked fully developed designs, adequate consideration of different user scenarios, and thorough user testing. Despite these challenges being unknown to the rest of the company, I received substantial support from the design department.
I communicated the project’s shortcomings to non-design stakeholders, clarifying that the current trajectory was unlikely to meet our goals. After several consultations, I spearheaded a series of workshops to address these issues, resulting in three main objectives:
Development
We initiated the project by holding workshops with the team and external stakeholders to outline the tool’s expected outcomes and key performance indicators (KPIs). During these sessions, I facilitated discussions on trade-offs and communicated the needs of the design and engineering teams. After aligning on a core offering, we developed a new prototype for usability testing.
In total, nine usability tests were conducted—five with the initial prototype and four during a soft release. The soft release involved incrementally introducing the tool to the public, adding 10% of Issuu’s user base twice a week until full deployment. This approach allowed us to gather quantitative data, implement tracking, and refine the tool based on insights for future iterations. After the full release of Social Posts, four additional tests were carried out.
All usability tests were recorded and transcribed. I reviewed these recordings, documented insights on a data wall, and organized them into thematic clusters. These clusters were then synthesized into action statements to guide and focus subsequent workshops with the team and stakeholders, clarifying out-of-scope elements and directing future iterations.
Solution
We designed components to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and to be versatile enough for integration into other solutions. Notably, components from the Social Tool were incorporated into Issuu’s Articles feature and the link & video editor. Templates - Provides the ability to format content for the intended platform. Publication - The assets from a flip books that have been uploaded to issuu. Uploads - Allow users to upload assets from cloud or hardrive. Text - Users can add additional text fields to the canvas.