DEREK KASCHL

PRESS LOFT

Press Loft is a PR & Digital Marketing network that connects Home & Gift brands with journalists, bloggers, and online influencers. In a symbiotic relationship, Press Loft's network helps 16,000+ journalists & bloggers easily find and source content (product images and press releases) from hundreds of brands and PR agencies in the Home & Gift sector who get print and online exposure in return.

Working with key stakeholders in the London head office, I oversaw the UX, design, brand and product development strategy and execution.

Some information may have been omitted / obfuscated due to NDAs and confidentiality concerns.
I'd be happy to discuss and provide more information on these projects in further detail offline.

MY MANDATE AT PRESS LOFT

In just over 10 years, Press Loft has gone from a bespoke image download solution for a single PR agency into a successful international SaaS platform. During this period of growth, the site had grown in features and scope. While this growth was welcome, it came at a cost of impacted usability and pattern consistency. My mandate was to:

apply user-centered design principles to help users better meet their goals while updating and improving look and feel
help Press Loft better meet its business goals - particularly with trial conversion rates
design & implement a new platform to enable PR agencies and companies to easily engage with social media influencers (Influencer Outreach)

CASE STUDY: A BETTER WAY TO CAPTION IMAGES

UNDERSTANDING THE USERS

The Users
To create user profiles to better understand the users, I led online and telephone surveys and held onsite interviews of PR agencies, companies and journalists. The goal was to challenge assumptions, learn more about the users' environmental contexts and goals, and to better empathize with their needs.

Press Loft User Personas

Users' Environmental Context
The overwhelming majority of brand & agency clients work in an office space on desktops and laptops. Mobile/tablet use is limited.

Many journalists, bloggers & influencers engage with the site on mobile devices and in a variety of spaces - offices, home, coffee shops, etc.

Users' Goals / Jobs To Be Done
Brand & agency goals:

get their products exposed to journalists & influencers who will publish them in print/online publications, blogs, social and other media
drive brand/product awareness to new and existing clients and, ultimately, grow sales.

Journalist, Blogger & Influencer goals:

find new products, trends, etc. to create and deliver content for their audiences
meet tight deadlines for articles, publications, posts, etc.
drive and maintain audience interest by providing relevant and timely content

User Pain Points
Brand & agency pain points:

although a requirement for images to go live on the site to be viewed by journalists, bloggers & influencers, captioning products in the image gallery was perceived as time-intensive
populating and maintaining the image gallery was seen as redundant to, or incompatible with, other platforms and formats already being used elsewhere (internal CMS, e-commerce platforms, CSV, etc.)

Journalist, Blogger & Influencer pain points:

product data is sometimes incomplete/incorrect and may require additional follow-up with brands
products no longer available or out of stock are often still displayed on the site by brands & agencies (and thus may prevent them from being suitable for use)
press releases & other content were viewed by some as not relevant and there was a desire for better filtering

THE PROBLEM: CAPTIONING IMAGES

From the surveys and interviews with users, it was apparent that captioning product images with product data was a major source of friction. Analysis determined that trialling clients were much more likely to get downloads and coverage if they had a certain number of images captioned in the image library (mandatory for products to go live on the site). Getting the downloads and coverage is the greatest factor in successful trial conversions.

To understand the issues around image data captioning, I sat with users to observe them, then spent considerable time doing it myself. Several minimum data points had to be entered separately per product. There was a clone function where data from one image could be copied over to another but it was one product at a time and frequently required more editing. This was ok for a few images but not optimal for larger batches. It took me, on average, about a half hour to upload and caption just 10 images - a significant amount of time.

Each data point had to be entered one-by-one

To be relevant and current for the journalists, bloggers, influencers and their respective audiences, the information often needs to be updated frequently. An example given to me of a significant source of pain by the brands and agencies in this case was making batch or global changes for price reductions or increases.

IMAGE EDITOR IDEATION

Through our interviews and surveys, it was clear that we needed to facilitate how brands & agencies import and update their data to improve user experience and increase trial conversions. (Note: this case study addresses the list view image editor, but I also worked on Shopify, XML and CSV methods as well.)

The image library in the client CMS displayed in grid or list view but was typically viewed in grid view by the brands & agencies as they were editing their products. In fact, the list view numbers were so low in the analytics that it was proposed to scrap it. It was only after speaking with a user who said that they used it as an overview for when they format their CSV files that I realized the utility of it. I began to ideate low-fidelity sketches...

Initial low-fidelity sketch (featuring the dastardly Time Thief)

...until I got something that looked promising:

The key stakeholder asked me to iterate some high-fidelity mockups (Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch):

Prototype & Testing
Although initially skeptical, the stakeholders were swayed by the productivity improvement shown in the mockups. I got the go-ahead to prototype the list view editor (in Adobe Xd). We then tested prototypes on a few users in their environments.

After more ideations based on observation and user feedback, the prototype was approved and sent for development.

RESULTS

Usability
Users were thrilled with the new functionality. One user reported a fivefold increase in productivity with the new inline editor for some tasks ("What took me 10 minutes to do before only takes a couple of minutes!").

A stakeholder who initially expressed skepticism over the inline editor concept was appreciative when the impact it made became apparent:

Business Goals
Released in combination with CSV uploads, there was an immediate increase in the number of new trials reaching the threshold of captioned images that led to better conversion rates.

Existing clients who found captioning overly time-intensive and were therefore at risk of attrition also reported increased productivity and overall satisfaction with the new inline editing functionality.

INFLUENCER OUTREACH

INFLUENCER OUTREACH PLATFORM

With the increasing prevalence of social media in consumers' lives, many companies are looking at online influencers to deliver important content to their target audiences. Not only are they seen as an authentic and trustworthy voice, they bypass hurdles like ad blockers and can level the playing field against competitors with much larger PR spends.

Recognizing the need of their clients for an Influencer Outreach platform to help streamline the process of connecting brands with influencers to engage in social media collaborations, Press Loft decided to build one for their users. I was tasked with leading the development from research, including surveys and user interviews, through to wire-framing, design, and prototypes to development handoff.

Goals / Job To Be Done
Based on needs uncovered by the user surveys and interviews, we worked out the main goals for each side of the collaboration.

Brand & agency goals:

increase traffic to their sites
generate greater brand awareness to their target audience
reduce the time required to find and connect with relevant influencers without incurring significant costs

Influencer goals:

make money from their online influence
get exclusive content for their audience that resonates with them

Customer Journeys & User Flows
Following user and competitive research, we had a general idea of the different functions and content needed for such a platform. We did card sorts to map out the architecture of interaction that would be required for each collaboration.

Once that was established, each interaction was mapped out to determine the touchpoints and channels for each persona. Starting with paper sketches, they were refined until we could clearly understand the various journeys and flows.

Customer journeys & user flows (low-fidelity to high-fidelity)

Wireframes
The next step was wireframing the interfaces. Beginning with hand-drawn sketches, we determined the content and platform for development (in this case Bootstrap). Designs and rudimentary prototypes were created and tested on a group of users that we recruited, and then iterated.

Wireframe iterations

Design & Prototype Iteration
Following user research, features and user flows were determined and the development process began (with Agile development practices).

Each phase was wireframed and was scrutinised during weekly crits with the stakeholders.

Development
The Influencer Outreach platform was in development when I relocated to North Carolina and was slated for release in 2018.

Thanks for checking out my story at Press Loft! There's more here:

8D TECHNOLOGIES

MONTREAL CA – 8D Technologies develops software and hardware for bike share solutions including CitiBike (NYC), Santander (London) and Capital Bikeshare (Washington). I was lead UX/UI designer for their mobile solution, backend components, and branding.

See my work