DESIGN CHALLENGE
Influencd
This is a design challenge I put together for a company I applied for.
The Challenge
Create the onboarding screens for a matchmaking platform that connects influencers and e-commerce brands. The end goal of the platform is to help brands improve sales through influencers, and help influencers activate another channel of income (receiving commissions through affiliated sales).
Basic Requirements
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Jot down research insights
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Create user flow diagram
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Create wireframes
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Create high fidelity prototype + red lines for engineers
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Only design for desktop views
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10 days to complete
Empathize
Problem Space
I recall watching HBO’s documentary “Fake Famous,” which is a social experiment to highlight how easy it can be to become a famous online “influencer" by creating content and purchasing followers. The online identities attracted real brand business partnerships, however due to the false online following this resulted in the loss of business revenue. I began to wonder how influencer-marketer partnerships are affected by the seeming lack of authenticity, ownership, and regulations surrounding these collaborations that take place online.
What if there is a way to easily connect influencers with marketers to create a more accessible and transparent relationship in order to drive profit for all participants?
Assumptions
We want to make note of any assumptions that usually I would invite the team to dive into with me - so we can make sense of the problem space. Some assumptions that were made are:
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Marketers are aware of and worry about fake influencers.
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Marketers have a hard time finding real influencers to work with.
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Marketers want influencers with a massive amount of followers.
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The online presence of a social media Influencer attracts “fake” businesses.
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Influencers worry about fraudulent businesses scamming them.
Preliminary Research
I then conducted some "desk research" to learn more about the problem space.
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The influencer market is projected to be worth 16 billion in 2022 - Statista.
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15% of advertisers' spending on influencer marketing is lost to fraud at an estimated 1.3 billion annually - CBS News.
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The Better Business Bureau (2021) alerted Instagram Micro-Influencers to
watch out for brand ambassador sponsorship scams.
Research Plan
Research Goals
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Identify positive and negative experiences during the brand/ influencer search process.
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Understand the pain points brands and influencers are experiencing with scammers.
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Guage insights on how influencers and brands get authenticated.
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Guage insights on positive and negative experiences using social media for business collaborations.
User Surveys
I created two different user surveys on Google Forms. One version is for influencers and another for Digital Marketers.
I reached out to 3 digital marketers I knew and 3 influencers I followed if they would like to volunteer to answer the survey.
Ideally, we would survey more participants, but given the time constraint, we couldn’t utilize the survey for quantitative data this time.
Define
Survey Analysis
I began to synthesize the results of the two surveys and grouped them into patterns and themes:
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Similar audience. Both influencers and marketers see value in partnering with each other if they both have the same target audience, and are both in the same industry.
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Follower engagement. The amount of followers is not only important
but the level of engagement from followers and how that determines an influencer’s authenticity. -
Authenticity. Influencers and businesses rely on some form of human interaction as a form of validation, whether it is in person or through communication. They rely on this validation because there is an awareness or even personal experience surrounding online scams.
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Resource Loss. There is a loss of time and resources both parties experience in exchange for a promise of compensation and or exposure.
Personas
Given the qualitative research we have, it’s important to create fictional characters, called
Personas, to really visualize Who we are designing for.
Influencer Persona
Marketer Persona
Journey Map
We want to create some journey maps into the current experience both Influencers and Marketers face today.
Influencer Journey Map
Marketer Journey Map
Ideate
Below I created an Influencer navigating the account creation & onboarding flow.
The orange boxes are Screens that a user views, the blue is the user’s action, and the grey triangle is the system decision (click the image for a closer look).
Prototype
After sketching and creating low-fidelity wireframes, I proceeded to create detailed mockups accompanied by a prototype.
If you are interested in more details of this project, you can view it here.