Project Background

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​​I have been contacted for consultation by start-up providing free access to digital publications.

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History: The start-up was funded with 25 million dollars of venture capital. In a very short period they hired a team of seasoned project managers and gifted web and UI designers; their goal is to launch an e-magazine service in eight months.

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The business plan was simple; subscribers would download a free app. This control would then provide access to over 150 digital publications. Quite simply, every imaginable news and information need would be delivered to your desktop. Revenue for the venture would be derived from a fee system collected from each of the sourcing publications. Believe it or not, seventy-five titles agreed to the plan and would pay the fee as soon as a predetermined download level was reached. How could this business model possibly fail? Magazines lined up to hand over the cash, and users flocked to the service since it was free. The venture capital community blessed the plan with a steady supply of funding.

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Confident that the venture would be the next big success, the project team proceeded to design the “coolest” and “jazziest” interface the world had ever seen. The group hired some of the best control designers from the game industry to add to the effect. Demonstrating what they felt was sensitivity to the user, the download procedure allowed four different download and configuration options. Ample help and support was provided for this process. Once the download and configuration was complete, the user could browse the seventy-five available titles. The development group’s confidence level was so high that they didn’t see the need to solicit input from likely users. It was only late in development when they finally contracted with a UX consultant to perform an expert review. With some reluctance, the consultant convinced the product manager that a usability test was in order as well. After the test came the big SURPRISE…………

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UX Audit (Brief)

 

In this case the product is oriented towards the digital publication apps marketplace. This is a rapidly growing market, with more publishers realizing the potential of the digital platform, and more readers turning to the convenience of digital readers. Any free app accommodating access to digital content should guarantee success. The idea of the startup is to connect readers with publications by providing abundance of magazine choices and ease of access through single app.

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Let's examine some of the current and future trends in digital publishing. With the flood of digital publications, clients look for high quality content. They have higher standard. Good information is not enough. They want to buy experience, educational, inspirational, stimulative. Mobile devices use is major trend, with also content curation and pushing content. Large part of today's digital content users are looking for value (getting quality content for less).

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The start-up company Izine is using the functionality, internally driven development model, they define the goals and parameters, and present the product to the client. Their product is nearly specified from the beginning. They offer in their product sophisticated visual design, many options and reliability.

 

In order to make the model work, the product has to entice the digital publication readers to connect to the publications and generate enough downloads (aligning user and business goals). That calls for understanding what would make the potential readers "click" (download) the app.

 

The start-up decides to "lure" the users with cool and flashy interface design, and a plethora of download and configuration options.

 

At the current stage they have nearly finished product, which is over-designed, bloated and difficult to navigate. They emphasize presenting the customer their app, instead of the product (digital publications) they want to connect the customer to.

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The result of performing late stage usability test might reveal that the whole project is in trouble. They may not be able to generate enough downloads to meet the publishers' or publications' requirements.

 

The outcome result of the usability test could have been in the following lines:

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• difficulty in using the product

• experiencing dissatisfaction

• interaction problems (artificial pain points created by over-designed interface)

• confusing information

• unnecessary functionality (too many download options)

• loss of interest

• publication of interest was not available

• there are too few scholarly/scientific/specialized publications available

• their device was not supported by the publication/format

• gravitation to familiar system (comfort zone of print magazines or such)

• some of users failed to see benefit of the app because it's just another browser

• most of the publications were available already on the web at the publisher's site

• another similar competitor service has more straightforward/easy navigation, etc.

 

While the product may have been successful decade or two ago, the root problem in this situation is that the developer has employed the "Waterfall" method from the beginning, instead of using a leaner development strategy. Possibly due to overconfidence, user input has been ignored, UX consultant input has bend sought at a late development stage, instead of at early (ideation and design) stage. The product has gathered momentum, and there is little chance of going back and beginning from scratch. At this point revisions are much more costly and time consuming.

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There are major deficiencies in the product such as lack of transparency (providing easy and seamless navigation for the customer to reach the content), lack of unique selling proposition (just another browser in the crowd of competing products or aps), failure to provide additional value to the customer, wrong structuring of the development process (internally driven rather than the system approach), improper allocation of resources (hiring wrong or too many coders/control designers and too few UX specialists, rather than creating cross-functional team), failure to design lean app (90/10 rule), etc.

 

Potential returns could have been realized in differentiating from the competition by providing value-added features such as content curation, push technology, ensuring device compatibility, easing the subscription process (providing discounts/renewal options/multiple title bundling, etc.), building personal library, providing access to scholarly/scientific/specialized publications, etc.

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Research determining whether users would pay for more specialized content and better experience (convenience, access) would have helped with the bottom line.

 

Waste could have been eliminated by avoiding high development costs (some of the best control designers are hired); bloated product design, unnecessary functionality, artificial pain points, 90-10 rule was not followed, redundancy with other similar products on the market.

 

Significant benefits would be realized by implementing UX input early in the product design process. For example: a better, lean, well designed product, aligned with the user and business goals; added value; saving considerable amount of funds, time and resources, leading to start up success and prolonging the product life cycle. Ample help and support for the download process has been alotted, when this could be ironed out into a simple intuitive, fault-proof process, thus saving significantly on the long term costs in the product maintenance phase.

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An argument could be made by comparing the development cost so far, with a different, more UX oriented scenario resulting in a leaner, user centered, innovative product. Would that have helped with the revenue?

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The proper strategy would have been, to perform evaluation of the current and future trends in the marketplace, and gather user input, by positioning the UX as early as the idea generation, and keeping it in the loop at all stages of the product and market life cycle. This could have been implemented by cutting waste, and refocusing resources to getting UX input throughout research, testing, prototyping, production stages, and later in product support and maintaining the market share ("riding the wave") stages. UX should have been a part of a cross-functional team, rather than placing it at the finishing stages, just because it's fashionable to have UX mentioned somewhere in the project.

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In the early steps of the project, rather than relying on expert judgment, UX research would provide market/user related data in regards to changes in magazine reading habits, interest/time (or lack of) for magazines, buying behavior, direct competition apps and services (Zinio, etc.), 90-10 survey.

The problem in the case would have been avoided with early and timely user involvement,  product opportunity assessment, identify business and user goals, competitor evaluation, minimal design.

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