Becoming the Originalin Design

Borrys Hasian / @borryshasian / borrys.comHead of UX & Design, Rakuten Viki

orig*i*nal, n A thing of singular or unique character; a person who is different from other people in an appealing or interesting way; a person of fresh initiative or inventive capacity.

Source: The Originals by Adam Grant

Two Routes to Achievement

Conformity

Originality Following the crowd, conventional path. Supporting status quo.

Take the path less travelled, initially against the grain but eventually makes things better.

1Challenge the Default

Viki navigation bar before March 2015

The improved design. We cut down 67% of the items. Replaced some landing pages with an Explore Page and streamlined the content discovery flow.

32% 69%

An average conversion to the video pages.

115%An average increase in conversion to the video pages.

Old version Proposed version

The results

2Interact More with the Users

Remote usability testing with an existing user

Usability testing on the mobile app with a

potential user

Usability testing with random user

Episodes selection on a particular show

What we thought was better for our users: a simpler episode list.

What users need: episode thumbnail to get a feel before deciding to watch the show.

How do users rate shows?

Our decision to use 1-10 scaleOne of the user research methods to find out how

3Collaborate

Three factors to balancein innovation

Source: Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley

An engineer pasted this on my monitor

Sketchstorming with the engineers, product manager, researcher, and designers

Defining Viki brand experience. From SF to SG office.

The executives

Product managers

Designers

Engineers

Users

The improved homepage, launched in Nov 2015

9.6%People who navigate from the home

page to the video page

4Speed Matters

Image source: Google Design Sprint

2-5 days of design sprint.

5Be Better. Don't just use canned solutions.

Watch indicator. What others are doing (long bar) vs Viki (time left + simple pie icon).

Be Original and change things.

Stay in touch Borrys Hasian / @borryshasian / borrys.com