A recognisable perspective.
Spaces centred on an expert or personality, or a trending topic. They could be created, searched and surfaced through personalised recommendations.
Public Spaces
Discover ideas. Through others.
Testing a new content format for discovering recommendations from favourite authors and experts.
MY ROLE
Vision sprint to product
I organised and facilitated the vision sprint, then worked with the PM, Content team and Partnerships manager to design and test a new content format.THE CHALLENGE
Connection beyond your circle
Users wanted recommendations and conversation, even when they did not have someone to share with.INTERESTED IN CURATED RECOMMENDATIONS
90%+
The opportunity
Curiosity doesn’t stop with people you know.
Over 90% of users in the research were interested in lists of title recommendations curated by others. Making Spaces public, or combining them with collections, was one of the biggest requests.
How did we get there?
A shared vision. In a single day.
I brought the cross-functional team and key stakeholders together to reflect on Spaces and imagine its future. A slimmed-down one-day vision sprint let us align on assumptions, build a prototype and test with users in the following days.
From assumptions to options
What would make public recommendations useful?
The sprint generated assumptions and several strategies to test. One route focused on experts and personalities: recommendations with a recognisable perspective, updated over time.
Testing the concept
Put the direction in front of people.
The PM and I moderated sessions and iterated on the strategies with users. Alongside the Content team and Partnerships manager, I shaped the expert route into a new content format.
What did we launch?
A new format. More than a reading list.
Publicly discoverable Spaces bring together recommendations, different types of content and reasons to return.
A reason to return.
Users could save titles to their Library. Regular updates and notifications helped keep the recommendations active and gave people a reason to return.
Content beyond the catalogue.
The format supports multiple content types, including external links opened in the browser. This also created an opportunity to learn how external content performed.
A better foundation for all Spaces.
The project also refreshed private Spaces. Consolidated headers show the latest titles and update automatically when a recommendation is added.
The next chapter
Experts first. A wider community next.
The first phase published a small batch of expert-curated Spaces to test the format. The longer-term vision was for people to create their own Public Spaces, discover others and potentially access them on the web.
LaunchedA small expert-curated selection.
LearnObserve saving and consumption.
VisionUser-curated Spaces, with potential web access.
A new discovery format. A clear way to learn.
The first iteration shipped with expert-curated Public Spaces. The aim was to understand whether this format increased engagement and overall consumption.
The key signals were active users in Public Spaces, individual titles saved, entire Spaces saved and content consumed from a Space. These measures would inform how the format evolved before opening it up to user-curated Spaces.
