VIDLET (San Francisco, CA)
Vidlet is a start-up founded by Patricia Rollins, former CEO (and founder) of Frog Design, and Charles Markus of IDEO. Vidlet is the merger of a video management platform and a mobile video survey app –blended into a qualitative research company that uses worldwide, real-life recruits to provide critical insights on product design and client initiatives.
COMPANY OVERVIEW
I worked with the executive team to understand the business model using interviews, whiteboard workshops, best practice comparisons and competitive analysis to uncover where the biggest problems and "clogged" user experiences were for the internal recruit and research staff.
PROBLEM STRATEGY AND VISION
I distinguished three top divisions to Vidlet's product offerings; recruitment, research, and delivery. Recruitment needed a database structure to find and match people to a project. The research product combined the Vidlet phone app and a web platform that facilitated mobile surveys, video management, reviewing, and editing responses.
It needed refinement on the key functions where researchers spent the bulk of their time.
PRODUCT DIRECTION
As product designer, I am responsible for defining the overall strategic vision of Vidlet's products.
Communicate strategy to stakeholders to earn buy-in from decision makers, and ensure the team has the tools and resources they needed to execute the product development.
Ruthless prioritization of functions based on release dates, competitive analysis, and internal and client user needs
Work with the off-shore and local technology team to build schedules and sprints covering all the functionality with limited resources
DEFINE RECRUITMENT PRODUCT
Leading the creation of a brand new product platform covering all the needs around recruiting participants for clients research studies. I created a solution that allows Vidlet to manage multiple aspects of profile information on a research participant and invite them to on-going client studies. A MVP was finished internally and we are now in development of Phase 2 with an off-shore team based in Vietnam. I am responsible for; setting prioritization, managing a multi-phased build-out plan, wireframing, UX/UI design directions, and QA protocol testing.
RECONSTRUCT SECTIONS OF THE RESEARCH PLATFORM
Directed major overhaul of key areas within the Vidlet research product - finding/reviewing video submissions, and editing videos for client deliverables. These two areas were where our internal users voiced the most frustration and time suck when working on a research project for clients.
INTERACTION DESIGN
I ran multiple workshops, daily prototype passes, wireframe versions, and beta testing to create a revamped way for our researchers to access the video files and refine them into edited themes. The team added highlighting, contextual filtering, comment/notes, and an editor with more fine editing tools and section title animations.
MOBILE PRODUCT INITIATIVES
Vidlet's mobile app connects client's research study questions to selected respondents. Respondents record videos of themselves, their households, products, experiences, and/or lifestyles from whenever and wherever they need to participate in the study. It is simple and solid.
PARTICIPANTS PORTAL
Another product initiative was to create a website - designed for mobile - that allows participants to control their own Vidlet demographic information and form a more robust relationship with Vidlet.
STRATEGY AND VISION
Planned modifications were focused on getting more feedback to participants about the quality of their videos and responses.
FUTURE PRODUCT INITIATIVES
Planning for the next phases of Vidlet's product family included a platform for delivering the research study insights to clients via customizable web-based, mobile optimized sites. There was also planning for critical infrastructure updates and modifications. And since software products can always be improved – looking at phases 3, 4, and 5... of the recruit, research, and result product suite Vidlet offered to the marketplace.
