My Contributions

Challenges

New Members

After interviewing editors, members, and stakeholders, Our first plan of attack was addressing the lack of new users. The existing homepage has no information explaining what the Your Shot platform is. Their site leads with browsing featured photos, tags, collections, and a muted “take a tour” CTA in within the sub-navigation. The lack of information detailing what Your Shot actually is, caused many potential leads to drop-off.

Increasing Current User Engagement

Your Shot’s power users were the most loyal fanbase I’ve spoken to in some time. Their loyalty was a result of Nat Geo's team constantly making an effort to engage users whenever possible. Editors provide constructive feedback, post assignments regularly, and feature member’s photos. In some cases, editors would fly power users to exclusive Your Shot events. Because of this, my team quickly understood why they refer to the platform as a community vs a social photo app.

During discovery, users did share a few pain points. The platform hasn’t truly been updated since the early 2000’s. The "m-dot" mobile site has so many usability flaws and isn’t responsive at all. In the past Your Shot discouraged mobile uploads since mobile cameras had low resolutions when the platform launched. They added the ability to do so later on, but the mobile experience never got the attention it deserved. The site’s navigation is misleading at times, making the browse experience somewhat clunky. Commenting and favoriting photos worked, but users couldn’t follow each other. If a user wanted to keep up with their favorite photographers, they had to remember their exact profile name. Since browsing makes up 90% of the overall experience, subtle usability issues stood out so much more.

Wireframes & Designs

Homepage

We focused a lot on new members when redesigning the homepage. We needed to teach new users about the platform, then showcase its value over other photo-centric competitors. To that point, most of the actions on this page funnel users to the sign-up flow. Existing users wont really see this page, and already understood the value. These users would be introduced to the new features, then directed to the new onboarding flow after logging in.

Our messaging throughout the page focuses on the Your Shot as a community. We wanted to make it clear that this platform is far from a popularity contest. During our discovery phase existing members feared they’d loses their sense of community. They didn’t want the educational value to be overshadowed by socialites hungry for attention and we respected that. Some of the users we interviewed avoid social media all together.

I designed a dynamic feed that would feature new work on a regular bases. This showed new users the community is active, and gave existing user's another place to potentially be featured. Showcasing real peoples work endorses the value of the platform. The strategy was to show potential members they could too be featured on National Geographic products.

Editors are just as active as members in the Your Shot community. Elevating their presence on the homepage helped new users better understand editor's roles within the Your Shot platform.

Our final highlight featured the platforms assignments and contest. Users who participate in these assignments can be featured in National Geographic’s magazine. This is essentially the key driving force behind every Your Shot member. Highlighting the assignments also reiterates the educational value offered by Your Shot. The page ends with a "sign up” CTA that directs users to a personalized onboarding flow.

Onboarding

We wanted to accomplish a few things with this onboarding flow. It needed to re-introduce existing users to the updated experience, and welcome new users to the Your Shot community. I was able to keep both flows essentially the same for each user (Kudos from devs all around). New users had to create a NatGeo account before they entered our experience. Since Your Shot is nested within the Nat Geo global site, modifying that sign-up flow was out of scope. With account creation being the only disrupter, both flows shared the same primary functions. First, we needed to gather user’s interest. Next, we had to make connections within the Your Shot community based on those interest. Lastly, we allowed users to connect with friends on various social media platforms. 

The term “Community” plays a huge part in the Your Shot brand and overall experience. I wanted to bring that forward in this onboarding flow to help make the platform more approachable. To add emphasis to their brand's voice, I started the onboarding with a welcoming message from a Your Shot editor. Learning from Nat Geo’s editors plays such a big role in the Your Shot community. I made sure that came through with some branded messaging and UX strategy. Rather then telling a user to take action, I guided our users with simple word choices. For example, instead of saying something like “Click the button below to build your feed”, I’d say “Let’s get started by building your feed”. Small details like this helped set the tone for what new and existing users should expect moving forward. 

The second step in the flow prompted users to build a feed by selecting photo categories of their interest. I wanted to bring personalization forward, then use the data to recommend assignments, suggest new people to follow, promote certain collections, etc. This step was optional for existing users, since we could make recommendations based off their activity before the update. Your Shot has personalization preferences, but those are primarily being used for sending newsletters. Personalization is critical when designing any user-centric experience like this. We wanted to create a solid foundation Your Shot could build upon over time.

Step three and four asked users to follow a few Your Shot members and experts. The recommended profiles would be linked to the interest selected in the previous step. I also incorporated a search to help existing users connect with their peers. A user could essentially start using Your Shot from this point on.

Step five connected users with friends on other social media accounts using Your Shot. The last step was optional for both new and existing users. This feature was beneficial to our stakeholders needs. Potential members would be more inclined to join platform if the invitation came from a friend. Once a user completes the onboarding flow, they would be directed to their personal feed.

Reimagining Photo Feeds

During the discovery phase I analyzed a wide range of feeds. Tumblr, Pinterest, 500px, Instagram, and OnePhoto are just a few. After using these for a few days, I noticed they were all more or less the same experience. I also noticed each app attracted a certain type of user. Most of the feeds promote the social aspects about them over the quality of photos being uploaded. The remaining platforms targeting professional photographers can’t provide the same caliber of feedback Nat Geo experts can. In order for our feed to be successful, it needed to accomplish the following task. 

The Feed On Large Viewports
Unlike Your Shot's competition, the majority of its members interact with the platform using PCs or laptops. Our testing proved users liked browsing grids of photos over one image at a time. I proposed a masonry grid experience similar to what you might see on Pinterest as a solution. Instead of taking up the full width of the browser, our grid utilized 2 columns. This addressed two key pain points unveiled during discovery. 2 columns let users browse content quickly, but prevented them from over looking recommendations they might find valuable. This also ensured that photos with lower resolutions look decent on larger screens. 

Promote New and Existing Content
I created a dynamic hero that doubled as a notification center and a promotional space for Your Shot content. The current notification center is linked to Nat Geo's global site. Opening those notifications takes users out of the Your Shot experience. The dynamic hero addressed that by highlighting the social activities users were most interested in, but more importantly kept them in the Your Shot platform.

When a user signs-in, they might see a card featuring a new assignment related to their interest. The next card in the carousel might feature their friends photo that was selected for the Daily Dozen contest (Your Shot members vote on 12 featured photos selected by the editors. The photo with the most votes gets featured on the Your Shot Instagram account.) This hero could also feature Nat Geo promotions. Our only criteria for the promo, is that it align with that users interest.

Teach Users How To Become Better Photographers
Your Shot experts offer constructive feedback with each assignment. All of that knowledge gets lost once the assignment closes. If a user wants to learn more about night photography for example, they have to relocate the night photo assignment, then find the article nested within it. Rather than making a user do that, our feed could elevate, and recommend that content to users based on their interest. Users could then save it for later or share it with peers.

Promote Editors Content
Again, editors play a big role in Your Shot's community. It was important to our client (aka the editors) that we promote their insights. Users also requested we make it easier to find this content, since the educational aspect was a huge draw for the Your Shot community. On that note, I wanted to go bold over subtle. Twitter, Instagram, and various social media platforms, normally use a small profile badge to verify certain users. Instead, we gave all editors post a unique card treatment, so it would be impossible to miss. We even went as far as carrying over the “Black Card” treatment to all editors post and profiles too.

Profiles

Adding a "Follow" button to user’s profiles was the original ask. We did that, then took things a step further. First, I added maps as a viewing option for users. Your Shot members take pictures all over the world. The map view would let users see exactly where their favorite photographers liked to shoot. By scrapping the metadata from uploaded images, we could also provide various details about the camera used to take these photos. Since this was also an educational platform, sharing that data resonated with users during discovery. In the future, users would be able to search this metadata via tagging.

Expert Profiles

Expert's profiles received a special treatment to differentiate their content from members. They would have all of the same abilities regular Your Shot members had, but we prioritized their activity over their post. Many experts actively post photos, but most of the experts activity was related to critiquing, or posting educational content. Members love expert’s photography, but valued their knowledge more. In addition to Your Shot activity, I added a section that would highlight expert post from Nat Geo's global site. This content was often lost since it lives outside of the Your Shot platform.  

Additional Features & Concepts

When designing any product, its always important to think ahead. Here are a few of the additional features I pitched while working on Your Shot.

Photo Courses

This concept utilized all of the existing photo insight shared by experts. Our client could then group the related content, creating courses for the Your Shot community. These courses might also prove to be valuable for non-Your Shot members opening the platform to new users. Our editors post a lot of content on the Nat Geo global site in addition to their Your Shot post. These collections could include that content too, giving it new life within the Your Shot experience.

Story Albums

This feature would grant users the ability to create stories out of photo collections. Your Shot members would often upload long descriptions with their photos. During discovery we learned users like to share some of the background story behind certain post. Story Albums could handle that, then stylize there content using parallax interactions, and various templates.