How a Web App MVP Saved Hundreds of Hours and Tens Of Thousands of $$$ For a social media agency
Moona.io is a 'new age' social media agency. They wanted to mass produce social media posts for small businesses. To provide a cost-effective solution, they needed a SaaS product that would help them automate communication and delivery of work.
Moona.io needed a custom software for their Social Media management.
They had an idea to reduce labour cost by automating certain tasks, and having a centralised dashboard that could speed up work time.
However, they wanted an affordable way of doing it to test out if this idea could even work.
They also needed a brand-new website to test their offers.
Build a sprint prototype for the MVP to test out the idea
Bring it to the users and beta testers to gather feedback and do user research
Make conclusions based on the analytics and implement changes to the UX
Create a customer experience, onboarding process and user flow
A/B Testing different offers for to see what the audience prefers
I tested the MVP with 3 users (clients, staff & admin accounts), and made improvements to navigation
I found out that the onboarding process and user flow needed improving, because of users dropping off
I was able to pin down the most effective offer for their sales funnel through A/B testing
I clearly outlined what the customer experience should be to stay with their service
The business needs to have high margins to have a return on investment
But, to position different in the market, it wants to be seen as the "fast food"
of the social media agency world
To be a mass-produced service, with high margins, everything needs to be
scalable
This means that everything has to be well optimised and thought through
when it comes to the supporting web app and website
This is where the process starts - from problem to solution, step by step we go:
The start of the project needed to be rooted in understanding who the product is actually so pose to be for.
This research sets the tone for the rest of the project, and a lot of the UX decisions.
In this case, I've found a few key points about our go-to customer:
They don't have time for social media
Their business is their baby, so they want full control of their social media and branding
They want a quick service that is centralized and can be used on the go
The start of the project was based on objectives and what our customer wants. So, I sketched out the ways of achieving main objectives.
High brand customisability for user
Easy view of user settings for staff members (for faster delivery)
A quick and easy way to request changes to individual posts (user customisability)
Give the user the ability to quickly chat with their account manager
Allow for extra customisability with custom post requests
Before I designed anything, it was clear that there needed to be good communication between me (the designer) and the developer who would implement the functionality.
I developed a diagram in Lucid Chart to bridge the gap between functions and usability.
The main features:
A dashboard with an overview of their monthly social media posts
In app messaging between account managers and clients
A revision & feedback system for their social post designs & copy
Custom post request panel
A brand customisation panel for the client for quick and easy brand changes
Profile and billing settings
Usually, designing the database tree is something the developer does.
However, in this unusual case, the database needed to be easy to view and understand by the client. I also made it to make sure I'm not missing anything important and that the client is on the same page.
Once everything was set up, I was ready to design the UX wireframes.
This included the user flow for the onboarding process and smaller flows, which I will get into later.
I was working with the developer in an 'agile' model to cut out project management. Meaning - we knew our roles, our goals, and we delivered on objectives.
So, I gave everything to the developer and described each element's usability and how the user will interact with it.
The 1.0 version of moona.io was launched and started being tested by some of their current clients.
After individual interviews with the users, I compiled a big document of features of the app that weren't used by them.
For example, after asking, users reported that they didn't know they could upload multiple images to their profile gallery to be used in the posts.
Or, when uploading their logo, there wasn't any visual feedback to let them know if the logo is in process of being uploaded.
In the next, 1.1 version of Moona.io, when people signed up, they had instant access to their dashboard.
Initially, the thought was to get them right into the action, and have them browse the app at their own leisure. But actually, that was a terrible customer experience, as users didn't really know what to do. I've found that only 5 of 61 users actually used the brand page to upload something, and not a single user used the "sample post request".
Not only could the agency not function without the crucial branding details, but it was clear that people weren't committed to continue with the service, as they didn't request any sample posts.
To solve the previous issue, I designed a user flow that would serve as an onboarding process and a bit of a customer experience too.
After signing up, the page greeted users with a thank you and introduced them to the app with tutorial videos. There was also a direct messaging tool installed for users to ask questions for the rest of the onboarding process.
While it is a very simple flow, after implementing all the screens, people were actually requesting sample posts and a few signed up for a free trial even with the credit card required.
This solved the issue thanks to my analysis and planning.
The design part of the website was something I was really fired up about. I love creating designs for SaaS businesses, and Moona was heading in that direction. I made the website look really SaaSsy (pardon the pun), with trendy animations, interactions, visuals and customisations.
Not only that, but I also created explainer videos and GIFs for them, so they can showcase their platform easily. These included the videos for the onboarding process.
At Moona, they offer a free sample post to people who sign up and provide their branding details. However, they wondered if a 7-Day Free Trial would be more attractive to potential customers.
So, we created two new landing pages for their Facebook campaigns - one with a 7-day free trial offer, and one with a free sample post offer.
The results of this experiment were interesting; more people were interested in the free sample post that didn't require them to provide credit card information.
This gave the company a good understanding of what offers are more attractive to people.
I was also creating everything in the UI design including icons, as well as the logo and all other marketing material materials.
Please note, that since these print designs, Moona rebranded to an Instagram colour pallet. The initial designs were in blue.
