Public Spaces
Testing a new content format to help users discover recommendations from their favorite authors
Where did this come from?
Research showed that users desire to interact about Blinkist content but may not necessarily have someone to share it with.
Over 90% of them mentioned they’d be interested in lists of title recommendations curated by others.
Making Spaces public or integrating them with collections was one of the biggest request from users.
What did our users say?
A destination to not just consume but also discover new titles recommended by experts, all through publicly discoverable Spaces
My role
I organized and facilitated a vision sprint that led to this project.
The PM and I collaborated with the Content team and Partnerships manager to design a new content format. We’ve tested the concept and moderated sessions to iterate on several strategies, one of them being the expert route.
Impact & Results
The first iteration was just shipped in January. We want to discover whether users are engaging with those public Spaces and if this increases their overall engagement.
Key metrics:
# of users that are active in public Spaces
○ saving individual titles
○ saving entire Space
○ consuming from Space
Our hypothesis
By curating and publishing a range of Public Spaces around experts/ personalities, that also get updated regularly over time, include some external content, and have new ways to interact with them,
We think that users will find a new way to discover content and engage with the app.
Therefore we will see more titles being added to their library and we will see more consumption overall.
How did we get there?
1.
I gathered our cross-functional team and several key stakeholders to reflect on the current state of Spaces, where we wanted to be and imagine how a possible future could look like.
To avoid blocking everyone for a week, I created a slimmed down version of a vision sprint they could attend in one day.
We’ve aligned on a few assumptions we wanted to test, created a prototype and moderated sessions with users the next following days.
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2.
The PM and I mapped out the most unknown user assumptions and hypotheses we needed to test to further flesh out the concept.
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3.
Existing features like Guides and Collections presented some jobs overlap (discovery and facilitation). We’ve ideated on strategies to ensure a clear distinction between them.
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4.
We wanted to understand who was the audience for this feature. We tested with Blinkist users then Experts willing to collaborate with us, including Robert Glazer.
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5.
We’ve opted for starting with an Expert-curated format as a strategic bet to see whether this would drive engagement and motivate users to create their own lists.
What did we launch?
1.
A new content format
Mostly centered around an expert or personality, otherwise around a trending topic
Fostering social interactions around what others think of these recommendations
Easily created, searchable and surfaced to other users through personalized algorithms
2.
Active, updated and interacted with constantly
Users have the option to add content to their library for quick access
Regular notifications keep users informed about updates
Blinkist encourages daily engagement by prompting users to return, consume content, discover what others are reading, and share their own consumption with the community
3.
Acts as a content aggregator
The list supports multiple content types which was proven successful for Guides and Collections
Also includes external content users can access from the browser app
The sub hypothesis will help us learn more about the usage of external links and how they perform
4.
Private Spaces get a refresh as a bonus
We used this project as an opportunity to consolidate our headers across the app
Users can now see the latest titles on the cover of the header that would be updated automatically once a new recommendation is added
Next steps & vision
Phase 1. Expert-curated Public Spaces
Get users used to the idea of Public Spaces and how to interact with them.
We’ve published a small batch curated by experts that we work closely with to test the new format and feature.
Phase 2. User-curated Public Spaces (Vision)
Get users to create their own Public Spaces, and to interact with other users’ Public Spaces.
Based on learnings from Phase 1, they could also appear on Web.
