Leveraging UX analysis & user interviews to drive user growth & retention

In 2009, a leading subscription-based image library provider acquired a competitor boasting over 125 million globally sourced, royalty-free photographs and illustrations. Immediately post-acquisition, the acquired property continued to operate in a business-as-usual manner. Over time, however, the property’s usage steadily declined, prompting the parent company to take action and address the underlying problems—before they incurred too much risk.

To remediate the declining performance of their investment, the parent company engaged 3Pillar Global to perform a UX Assessment. This assessment would help the client identify necessary experience improvements that could positively impact the product’s bottom line and generate a return on investment.

To perform the UX Assessment, 3Pillar initiated two forms of evaluation over an eight-week period. The first was a UX Heuristic Analysis which leveraged industry benchmark data and 3Pillar’s proven methodology to systematically review the platform and find potential usability and general UX problems.

During this analysis, 3Pillar assessed different levels of issues across ten categories:

• System Status Visibility
• System Alignment w/ User Mental Models
• Consistency & Standards
• Visual Hierarchy
• Recognition > Recall
• User Control
• Flexibility and efficiency of use
• Error Prevention
• Error Correction
• Help & Documentation

This analysis revealed numerous usability issues as well as critical system errors that prevented users from successfully using the platform—e.g. creating new accounts, searching for and successfully finding content, purchasing content, and more.

The second evaluation came in the form of a series of user interviews specifically geared toward understanding their perspective on product successes and shortcomings. 3Pillar identified key areas of improvement in the property’s UX and application architecture. Namely, some users were confused about how to use the product, requiring a better understanding around the sources of confusion and how to tailor the application to their expectations. User interviews also quantified reasons for dropoff and benchmarked performance against competitors.

Additionally, 3Pillar addressed some discontinuities between the current business model and user expectations, using these insights to better align language and cost with user expectations and business needs.

The combination of both analyses enabled 3Pillar to provide clear, actionable steps that the parent company could take to improve the acquired property both from a functionality and UX perspective. These included constructing a journey map of a typical buyer, which helped to prioritize new design solutions and implementations—both in terms of fixing critical usability issues and deploying strategic platform upgrades.

After completing their UX Assessment with 3Pillar Global, the parent company was empowered to invest in their platform strategically, focusing on areas that would drive key business outcomes:

• Improving user engagement, which drove retention and reduced churn
• Re-engaging new user growth
• Capturing critical user data during their engagement on the platform
• Enabling ease of navigation for users

Initial reporting as of November 2023 show that the number of new accounts being created is increasing, as is the number of free trials being started. Additionally, revenue growth is building month over month, although it is still too early to see a predictable trend.

As a result of their positive reception and implementation of the UX Assessment, the client has continued to work with 3Pillar, leveraging our expertise, abilities, and track record to further improve user experiences within the acquired platform and other platforms and products.