content summary 


Voodle

A platform for short video conversations between remote working teammates
SPRING 2021
Four design sprints
Ongoing user research

ROLE
Design lead
UX research
Prototyping

TEAM
iF project team
Voodle product team

Voodle engaged iF to overcome  adoption challenges  on their short-form video platform. We delivered an  outcome  that set Voodle up for strategic next steps.

I led our team through  research-based  design sprints. We identified three  insights  that were key to adoption and motivation.

We re-imagined Voodle's  onboarding flow , designed a new  prompt feature , and updated the UI to incentivize  responses .



The challenge

During the remote work transition of 2020, start-up Voodle identified an opportunity to bring short-form video to the workspace. They saw clear value in bringing body language and emotional tone to remote, asynchronous conversations, and built a short video platform for working teams, blending Slack and TikTok functionality.

Several months into its public launch, Voodle wasn't attracting consistent usage. Targeted ads successfully led to downloads, but users would stop engaging before creating content or connecting with teammates. Or, working teams invited to the platform by their leadership would send one or two videos – but ultimately stop engaging after their first session. Voodle came to iF with a twofold challenge:

1.
What would inspire new users to engage with Voodle from onboarding through inviting teammates?

2.
What would inspire teams to escalate their use into ongoing engagement?


Outcomes

Voodle needed fast, flexible concepts based on solid user research to support their active product. Each design sprint included ideation, user testing, and a concept or UI handoff ready for immediate inclusion in Voodle's work.

I led the design process that helped Voodle transition to a more organized browse experience with clearer calls-to-action, conversation topics, and response flows.

“

iF propelled the overall design of our product with thorough research, actionable insights, and valuable designs. After this process, we have a much better understanding of how users interact with our platform.
—Forest Key, CEO Voodle Inc

I handed off modular designs with room for variation: Quick updates for immediate implementation, and larger, more structural ideas for future consideration.

“

The iF team was flexible during the entire project and worked with us to adapt the scope as we learned from the process. We benefited from the agility of the team and the dynamic workflow as they worked to understand our needs.
—-Beverly Vessella, Director of Product, Voodle Inc.


Design research

Research techniques were key to validating our ideas. During each sprint, we recruited groups of 3-5 co-workers from different companies, and led them through both solo and group research activities. This helped us identify the mindsets of individual users, as well as how needs and values shifted for social groups.

In one activity, teammates worked together to plot possible use-cases across two different axes.

Activities were conducted through a combination of increasingly high-fidelity interactive prototypes and the Voodle app itself. In some cases, we used smoke-and-mirrors Wizard of Oz techniques to gather quick feedback on features that were otherwise time-consuming to build.

Here's a sample of feedback from Sprint 2 testing. I identified key quotes from user testing and mapped them over our prototype flows, to facilitate strategic conversations with our clients.



Insights

iF's final design work for Voodle revolved around three key insights. These insights recommended how Voodle could best entice users to explore their platform, invite teammates, and energize ongoing conversations.


01

Moments of fun, spontaneous connection are most likely to inspire and support adoption.

Throughout our research, participants got most excited about Voodle's potential for their team after learning new things about colleagues, or seeing the people they worked with in new ways.

It's easier to respond to a question than to start a conversation from scratch; so we designed a prompts feature that suggested an array of starter topics to both set the tone and lower the barrier to voodling.

During onboarding, prompts helped reduce ambiguity and anxiety as users recorded their first voodle. Users got a clear visual cue just below their camera to focus on while recording, and avoided the cold-open problem of not knowing what to say.

As usage continued, evergreen prompts might become fun ways to inspire new waves of conversation. New prompts could be unlocked over time, helping users imagine new topics to share with co-workers.

02

Focus on unblocking potential power-users, rather than ensuring full-team adoption.

It only takes one or two enthusiastic teammates to discover an app like Voodle and start sharing infectious content. Just the experience of seeing teammate's voodles can inspire people initially uncomfortable with recording videos.

Private groups were necessary for team adoption. Even power-users wanted to try Voodle with small groups of trusted co-workers before inviting their full team.

Hyper-clear visibility settings helped users trust Voodle with their image and voice. Sharing with co-workers heightened their need to know exactly who would see their content over time.

"Office-culture" conversation topics broadened the range of teammates who would champion Voodle. Junior employees felt more comfortable inviting peers and higher-ranking coworkers when conversations had an extracurricular rather than work-oriented focus.

03

While short video creates a captivating "watch" experience, it's difficult for users to know when or how to respond.

Moving from passive video watching to active video creation is a big context switch. When a platform wants to encourage immedaite, spontaneous responses, its users need clear interface cues and zero blockers to make the transition.


Pauses at the end of videos and conversations create the space for users to contribute their voice. We made this an organic and undisruptive part of the "watch" flow by animating a response button into view between videos, and celebrating the moments when users finished watching a whole conversation with an additional “add your voice” nudge.

Flexible response options gave users multiple ways to respond immediately to a conversation - even when they weren't immediately ready to create a video. We doubled down on the immportance of existing "like" and "comment" features, and recommended an "audio only" voodle option to help users practice a recording mindset even when they didn't feel camera-ready.


Onboarding

Sprints 1 and 2 showed how important it was to let users create their first Vooddle in a private, low-risk environment. I delivered a new onboarding flow that created a relaxed, playful mindset with clear content visibility messaging - before we requested users' camera permissions (Screen 2).

I also recommended that we move account creation back in the flow, letting users record a voodle before asking for their emails (Screen 1). While the Voodle team liked this as a future idea, they requested keeping account creation first for our handoff.

In every testing session users immediately looked for a path to their new content immediately after creating their first voodle. We wanted to insert more onboarding guidance at this point. But testers consistently skipped, dismissed, or ignored our pop-up mmessages as they rushed to try features for themselves.

My solve was to embed further onboarding guidance into the interface itself, next to the parts of the UI that users were most likely to tap. Instructions on team customization lived directly on the menu until users interacted with the feature (Screen 5). The layout of the blank team homepage gave visual cues on how to create new voodles, new conversations, or invite teammates (Screen 6).



Prompts

Our final two sprints explored ongoing team motivation. We designed and tested features to support the first month of team voodling, including a prompt feature that celebrated user achievements and suggested new types of conversations.

Prompts began as a way to assess opportunity areas in early prototype iterations. As users made choices during prototype testing, we learned what kinds of conversations were most intriguing for early exploration. We also learned something unexpected: Users liked the prompts themselves. Rather than feeling constrained or annoyed by conversation suggestions, they appreciated having more structure while recording videos.

We experimented with different motivators during user research; including notifications, audience engagement, and gamification.

In the end, prompts themselves turned out to be the most desirable motivator. I blended our gamification, notification, and prompt ideas into a flow that would allow high-contributing voodlers to discover new prompts over time.



Responses

We improved the reply experience while watching videos - lowering the friction of joining a conversation. When we began our work, users had to tap back to their team homescreen in order to create a new voodle. I experimented with different ways to bring a reply button into the play experience.

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