Design Results

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

Project Summary

The Client

The tech & ad-platform, Extreme Reach

The Brief

When deciding on which states to film commercials, TV shows and movies, film production companies must consider each state’s tax incentive program to ensure their project meets the minimum requirements while weighing the unique benefits of each.

In an attempt to acquire new film production clients, Extreme Reach wants to design a product that helps production managers better navigate the different benefits of each state so they can make an informed decision and subsequently contact ER for additional information.

The User

Film production managers

The Problem

While products aimed at resolving this specific need currently exist, they are difficult to navigate, overwhelm the user with an abundance of information and require repetitive and time consuming actions. 

 The Solution

A tool built around the user’s task-positive mental state, enabling production managers to efficiently make an informed decision by reducing clutter and improving upon competitive shortcomings.

KPI’s

Learnability, Lead Generation

Results

57% improvement in learnability when tested against competing products.

Lead Gen metrics are TBD, as the product is still in development.

Parameters & Details

Methods Used

Competitive Analysis, Usability Testing, Heuristic Evaluation, Feature Prioritization, Sketching, Wireframing, Prototyping.

Tools Used

Sketch, Figma

Team

Brandon Cherry (solo freelance work)

My Role

Handled all aspects of the UX design process from research through to design delivery while coordinating with Creative Director & other internal stakeholders to ensure the design accounted for both business and user needs.

Research & Design Strategy

Upon receiving the design brief, I was notified that the clients did not want to perform any user interviews, as they already had a general understanding of the problem they were trying to solve for. However, although I was instructed to not interview users, I still knew that I had to perform some sort of research to ensure each design decision was firmly backed by rationale and tailored to our users.

I gathered my rationale by first researching UX psychology and design principles that applied to our users. Then, I performed a heuristics evaluation on a few of Extreme Reach’s competitors to identify how they succeeded or failed to apply those principles to their designs. The intention was that these learnings would allow me to apply the competitor’s impactful features and elements to my own product, while improving on the areas they fell short.

But before doing that, I first had to understand the user’s mindset to determine which heuristic and psychology principles to utilize. Through research, I learned that production managers would be in a task-positive mindset while interacting with my product.

Task Negative

After gaining a better understanding of my user’s mindset, I performed additional research to learn how I could best tailor my product to adhere to their needs in order to help them complete the task as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

As such, I found two core principles that would help maintain the user’s attention while helping them find the state with the best incentive options for their respective project in a timely manner.

Next, I leveraged these principles to perform a heuristics evaluation on competitive products and identified where they went wrong.

1. Learnability

Score

Major Problem

Evaluation

The user’s cognitive workload is high, as they are expected to learn a new color coded system of 5 different variables just to complete the first step of the decision process (identifying each state’s incentive type).

2. Usability

Score

Minor Problem

Evaluation

The product’s head-to-head comparison function enables users to add up to 6 different states. Keeping Hick’s Law in mind, this abundance of options coupled with the 9 different comparison metrics would make it extremely difficult for users to make a decision in a reasonable amount of time, likely causing frustration and inhibiting usability.

3. Clarity

Score

Major Problem

Evaluation

The dashboard is extremely cluttered, featuring heavy copy and different CTA’s that distract the user from completing the task. Additionally, the incentive map’s hover state (left) shows all metrics at once and does not thoughtfully organize the incentives based on hierarchal best practices, likely leading to confusion and deterring from task completion.

4. Delight

Score

Minor Issue

Evaluation

Users must first identify the states they want to compare, then proceed to click through to another page, and re-select their desired states from there. Knowing our users have a task-positive mentality, this is a potential issue as our goal is to minimize steps and effort, as opposed to adding pages and required actions.

Design Ideation, Wireframing & Prototyping

After garnering a better understanding of our user’s mental state, applicable best practices, and ways I could build upon competitive products, I ideated features that aligned with the design strategy & sketched potential design solutions.

Next, I brought my design up to a higher fidelity, ensuring that all design decisions tied back to the strategy and insights gathered through research.

Upon completing the wireframes and prototype, I traveled to the Extreme Reach offices to present my work and whiteboard with the clients.

After collaborating in person, we aligned on a few updates based on business goals, and I began designing the final high fidelity mockup.

Usability Testing

Finally, to ensure the product was usable, learnable, and clear, I not only tested the prototype on users, but also put it to the test against competitive products.

Through testing, I found that the application of the insights garnered through research were effective in hitting our KPI of improving learnability, as our new design beat the competition by 57%, while 100% of users completed the tasks without difficulty.

Next Steps

Upon completing the interactive map, I designed a feature that would also allow production managers to estimate the tax incentives for their project in each state, while keeping the same principles and learnings in mind.

The full design has now been completed and approved by the clients, who are currently working to develop the product based on the delivered specifications.

After the product is developed, we will look test its ability to help users make an informed decision and subsequently drive leads while iterating accordingly.

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL