UX Design & Strategy
Increasing content discoverability and visibility
Heart + Bones is a online yoga studio focused on helping users support their bodies and lead a sustainable life. The online studio offers workshops, online classes, courses, and free resources. With a growing community and hundreds of online classes being uploaded, it became increasingly difficult to browse and discover content. My team worked with Heart + Bones to uncover the main user problems and redesigning the user experience of the yoga studio to better reflect the company’s current mission and goals.
All thoughts and opinions in this case study are my own and does not reflect the views of Lift Interactive nor Heart + Bones. All confidential information and in-depth process details have been excluded. Contact me for more information.
PROBLEM
Identifying user concerns and comments
Members of the yoga community loved the online studio, but faced a couple of problems that could make their experience better. Heart + Bones collected and gathered 200 survey responses, coming up with a list of feature changes involving the filter system, content layout, and what they thought would address the user feedback.
RESEARCH
Understanding the real problem
After understanding more about the online studio, my team was able to break down and identify common themes from the survey responses. The themes identified helped us understand the bigger problem at hand: Users are overwhelmed with the amount of choices available, users wanted to see more of X videos which were available but was difficult to find, and users could not find videos that fit into their schedules. If we look at the themes at the surface level, we miss the opportunity to create a solution that targets them all. My team’s main focus was directed to personalizing content to users.
SOLUTION
Personalized content through grouping content
Shifting through hundreds of videos and resources is a problem that Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, and MasterClass have solved with content personalization. However, implementing personalization for this project was limited in scope as we could not leverage machine learning. The new online studio was given a refreshed look with a clear and intuitive navigation, discoverability dashboard, and easy to scan vertical filter system. The discoverability dashboard presents users with featured classes, popular categories, and upcoming live classes. Compared to the previous dashboard, users could find new and related content 10x quicker.
RETROSPECTIVE
Challenges that came up and what I learned
Understanding the different design decisions and relation to development costs was crucial for this project. We had discussions with other departments to gauge what could create a win-win situation for both sides. Essentially it was learning how to prioritize development efforts to where they would make the greatest impact which meant we would complete everything in phases. I also learned how to advocate for the best user experience while addressing what was important to the Heart + Bones team. The Heart + Bones online studio was a special and fun project that I was happy to be a part of.