Championing a user-centric view
My Role
- Product Design Director
- Researcher
- Design Strategist
- Project Lead
Context
Global Savings Group (GSG) stands as a global leader in digital publishing, with over 50 savings sites across 20+ countries and partnering (white-labels) with renowned media entities such as CNN, Business Insider, and Burda Group.
01.Diagnosis
Identifying the underlying issues.
To initiate the process, a thorough understanding of customer awareness and decision-making processes was crucial.
Engaging with stakeholders revealed diverse perspectives that needed alignment, fostering collaboration and shared understanding.
Sometimes I like to draw cartoons of my colleagues.
We just needed to connect the dots and to know each other's points of view.
02.Process
A multifaceted approach encompassed iterative design, research, and content guidelines. Key findings highlighted divergent views on user definitions, success metrics, and a historical lack of Product and Design representation in crucial conversations.
Key findings
The process involved three lanes—iterative design (brand, UI, UX, external communications), research, and content guidelines.
03. Fundamental Agreements
Alignment among Commercial, Operations, and SEO teams became imperative to create a user-centric product without compromising monetization.
Quality over quantity was emphasized through data analysis, challenging industry standards.
Quality vs. Quantity
The figures presented below are illustrative and were modified in order to be shared.
I conducted data analysis to identify the highest revenue drivers among all the vouchers offered (codes, deals, sales, tips, rewards, and cashback).
80% of transactions reported came from the highest quality codes, representing only 10% of the offering.
A competitive analysis showed that some competitors were outranking our couponing pages, with no more than ten vouchers, which goes against industry standards (20-70 per page).
This was not enough to avoid the risk of revenue loss. It became extremely relevant to create a framework to test our hypotheses where multiple teams could be part of.
04.A path to success
Defining a metrics framework
Defining a metrics framework involved workshops based on HEART, AARRR, and North-Star metrics frameworks.
Key Metrics
Cross-functional collaboration became central to the experimentation framework, fostering transparency and shared ownership.
A Slack channel was created to keep any interested team-mate updated, around what was happening, and the results, wins, and fails were shared out-loud.
05.A culture of collaboration
Design and Research Open channels
As the users' representatives for the company we took that responsibility seriously and started sharing findings, new designs, and user feedback on multiple channels, we also included new stakeholders into the design ceremonies (critiques, knowledge sharing, cooldowns...) and workshops.
Based on Polaris UX Nuggets using Airtable
Often the conversation led to “where can I find what users think about...”, and to support the design and research team effort we implemented the feedback nuggets library using Airtable.
Open channels for Design and Research facilitated widespread sharing of findings, new designs, and user feedback. The implementation of a feedback nuggets library using Airtable enhanced accessibility and elevated discussions about products and users.
06.Outcome
A new way of collaborating
The organizational shift towards a user-centric vision led to a growing design team, the establishment of design systems, and increased collaboration across teams. Meaningful projects proliferated, contributing to an 8% increase in conversion rate alongside improved UX signals, reinforcing the idea that revenue and user experience can coexist harmoniously.
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