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PowerDirector App Redesign

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Project Overview

Time  

2021-2022

Project Brief

PowerDirector is a video editing app that has been created for more than ten years, and has always been the company's main product. Whether creating cinematic-style movies, videos of your latest adventure, or using a green screen to share exciting, memorable moments, PowerDirector provides powerful features, that enable users to make professional, high-quality videos.
However, in 2021, PowerDirector user growth was stagnating, we started to pay more attention to the user experience of the product, and hope to improve the user retention by improving the user experience of the product.

Role

UX, UI design
(I am the only UX/UI designer in this project)

Problem

  • The user growth was stagnating

We found user growth stagnation and need to find the key problem urgently.

  • Ignore user experience

I also found there were a lot of unreasonable UI flows in the product that caused a worse user experience.

  • The UI design was outdated and the visual hierarchy was inconsistent

PowerDirector was designed in landscape UI mode to let users create professional videos across the mobile app and desktop software seamlessly. However, as time goes by, the landscape mode UI design was not in line with the trend for video editing and video sharing to other multimedias. Moreover, the exact design guideline was outdated to follow. Building up a design system is a crucial affair to redesign the app.

  • UI getting complex, there were no space for new features

The app was getting complex with the growing functions, and there is a lack of space for the new features.

Goal

  • Enhance a better user experience in the product

PowerDirector attracted customers with its powerful features in the past, but the product's user experience has always been ignored. So, how to influence stakeholders and the teams to pay more attention to user experience, to improve the product service is my goal in this project.

  • Improve subscriber retention and subscription rate

From the stakeholder aspect, PowerDirector needs to revive to keep the active user subscribing to the product constantly and attract new users to use our product.

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Final Outcome

Reusable UI components for the design system

  • The UI components were used across other products.

  • Save the engineer develop time.

  • Enhance the working efficiency for designers.


Great elevation in revenue

  • Good growth in the total download rate.

  • Subscription rate soared (which including the subscription-page icon increased by +100% and install-to-trial CR% increased by +284%).

  • The revenue growth up to the next-year target.

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Design Process

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User Research

The first step we took was understanding the problem by gaining an in-depth understanding of our customers, our service, and the market. Ｗe calculated users’ feedback from the Customer Service team and researched the product usage data. In addition, we conducted a competitor audit, and that was an effective way to compile all of our research into one central resource. The research helped us identify the critical areas to focus on and the reasoning behind them. And we sort out the key findings:

1. Quantitative data: 

We collected the quantitative data to understand feature usage and generated user feedback to find the user’s needs.

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Most of users requested support for vertical (portrait) editing mode

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Most popular features of the app are Transition, Change font, Title, Effect, and LUTs (Filters)

2. Competitive Audit: 

We also compared the main features with both the direct competition(KineMaster and VivaVideo) and indirect competition(Picsart), and we also deal with many prioritizations to make sure we can deliver the new version on time.

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What we found:

1. Similarity and Difference:

UI mode- After the competitive audit and user feedback research, we found most video editing competitors used portrait UI mode as their video editing page design. It was the trend to use vertical editing mode because most users use 9:16 videos on the smartphone and share the videos to other app platforms. So we plan to support portrait UI mode and keep the original landscape mode, which had not be see in other competing products, it will be an advantage over competitors.
Launcher page- To improve the install retention rate, we need to let users love the product by entering the editing room to try it first. So we need to emphasize more on “New Project” than “Project list” in launcher.
Features- After competitive audit, it is found that the product features have no special advantages, and it is difficult to cause users to want to pay for use or even switch to PowerDirector. In the future, it is necessary to continuously evaluate and enhance the function development. 

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2. Commercial Diagnosis:

Subscription plans- PowerDirector was originally provide three subscription plans, after competitive analysis, we found the plan should be focused on the yearly plan discount, and the subscription page UI should be more attractive.
Features- After competitive audit, it is found that we had many pop-up when a user click produce with premium features used in their timeline, including subscription page, premium feature dialogue, gamification dialogue, so we propose to reduce the needless pop-ups and optimize the user flows in the app.

Map user journey

Journey mapping

I interviewed five existed users and mapped the user journey map, the product functions are disassembled into different unit tasks, referring to the various user experiences of user feedback, and adding personal feelings and suggestions after using the product.

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Value Proposition

After discussed with stakeholders and conducting feedback from users, the future core direction and vision of the product are sorted out, and users are expected to benefit from the new product.

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Information Architecture

In the original information architecture, some vital functions were on the second level that could not be seen and found, so we restructured the structure of the functional map.

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Final Design

After conferming everyone was on the same page for the app redesign strategy, we started to build on the final design. We separated the design into four steps: 1. Support portrait editing mode, 2. launcher page redesign, 3. subscription page redesign, and 4. adding gamification and rewards regulation in the app.
For the new design of each step, we had the internal usability testing and design refined to check the user experience fit the user’s needs, and then we built up the final design. 

1

UI operation method - Support portrait editing mode

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  • In the original design, we only support the landscape edit mode.

  • After the user research, we found it was the trend to use vertical editing mode because most users use 9:16 videos on the smartphone and like to share the videos to other social media platforms which use portrait UI mode as well.

2

Launcher page redesign

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  • Too many informations causing “Add New Project” to become a bit defocused.

  • As the data showed, the CTR of “Get Inspired” was low, so we decided to remove this part from the launcher.

  • Should avoid users having to scroll the screen.

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Among the existing users who enter launcher :
->21% click project list
->55% click Add new project

->2.8% click Sample Project
(Promote new/popular contents & features)

->1.5% click Get Inspired (Promote SEO & IG)

->1.8% click Produced Video/Tutorials/Youtube/IG/Setting

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  • The launcher design in landscape mode is a bit different from it in the portrait mode. I made the “Add New Project” align with the project list, and highlight it in the first and replaced the other button on the header to make the screen clean and clear.

  • Prevent distraction:  I replaced the minor functions in the menu, to keep the main Launcher page looks clean and simple. Users don’t need to scroll the screen, they can see the main functions.

  • Increase Create New Project rate:                To improve the install retention rate, we need to let users love the product by entering the editing room to try it first.

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3

Subscription page redesign

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  • The original subscription page design provided three subscription plans whose discounts were not attractive to users.

  • The information in landscape mode was very crowded.

  • The premium feature thumbnails were so dark that unattractive to users.

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  • Make Informations displayed clearly : I changed the way to present our subscription plans. I make it be focused on the annual plan discount, show the price comparison of annual plan and monthly plan more clearly.

  • Up to date features : To keep users engagement and attraction, we redesigned the banner for each holiday sales. I also displayed the features carousel, and continually adding new features with each new release .

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4

Gamification and Rewards

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  • Set up rewards regulation: I designed the gamification and rewards regulation in the app, to attract new users to stick to the app and able to use the premium features.

  • Gamification challenges entry

  • Daily check in pop-up. When users check in for 3 days, they will get “1-day premium for free” rewards.

  • The challenges list. Users can claim the rewards when they complete the challenge.

Design System

Ensuring our users have a consistent experience throughout the product is vital. I defined the design system to reinforce consistency. Building the design system helped me think through every detail I had created and improved me to make the design more intuitive. Moreover, it can increase user satisfaction and enhance the user experience when using the product.

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Final Outcome

Reusable UI components for the design system

  • The UI components were used across other products.

  • Save the engineer develop time.

  • Enhance the working efficiency for designers.


Great elevation in revenue

  • Good growth in the total download rate.

  • Subscription rate soared (which including the subscription-page icon increased by +100% and install-to-trial CR% increased by +284%).

  • The revenue growth up to the next-year target.

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Learning and Takeaway

Having good communication with teams is crucial.
In this project, I was addicted to clarifying the blurred areas and defining user requirements. Despite regular usability tests, I reported the UX issues to the stakeholders and PM every week. It was key to providing business decisions to solve real problems. So, thinking about how to convince others and proposing good suggestions is the most important lesson I learned from the project.

Use Data to validate designs.
Most of the time, the stakeholder concerns more about if the project achieves the business goals than the user experience. Through this project, I learned that using data to validate designs will help a lot to let the stakeholder understand having a good user experience also plays a crucial role to achieve business goals.

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