At the first stage of the subscription-based video platform, sofasoda only provided a website experience. However, in Q3 2021, the product team received a request for App MVP development to provide BD discussed a partnership with GenT, and the condition was to launch the MVP for users while the exclusive content is ready. In addition to the cooperation project as the main factor, we also considered the scalability of our future content library. In order to allow users to watch the content more conveniently and enjoy a better experience in different scenarios. We saw the opportunity to observe the market reaction directly.
Developed an MVP app for our Membership Service for business development and tested it in the market.
Worked Closely with a product manager, product designer, and engineers. Responsible for creating user flows, design system from 0-1, final UI, and handover with engineers.
Considered both the technical and design aspects to assist in the rapid development of products under the highly uncertain business needs and limited human resources.
Completed the first version of MVP within the deadline and helped BD successfully negotiate with the partnerships.
In a small team, we must develop the app with other projects simultaneously. The timeline and human resources had been the biggest constraint and challenges since we only had one backend engineer, an iOS engineer, and an Android engineer to develop the first MVP.
I started with the user flow based on our website to discuss the design and development phase with the product manager. In addition, to meet the business requirement, it minimized the cost of maintenance for further design and development. Meanwhile, another designer and I studied other similar subscription video platform products from the perspective of interface design and experience. (Click on the "See the Board" Button to view the user flow)
Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned. We found out that we needed to release the first version a month in advance for the Business team to use for Demo. Therefore, the MVP version has changed from providing new users and existing users as the main direction to Demo. Faced with the adjustment of schedule and goals, the product team prioritized all features from the Demo perspective and discussed the final scopes to achieve the deadline together.
A good product not only provides good functionality but also needs to give users a good experience. To ensure our users have a consistent experience across the product, I defined a basic design system with another product designer. Through this system, designers collaborated more effectively on the design. Besides that, the design system also helped us to communicate more smoothly with engineers, reduced the cost of development, and created a good foundation for future maintenance and modification.
With an account, learn wherever and whenever. sofasoda want to create an atmosphere of rich and diverse content as soon as they enter the app. At the first glance of onboarding, I used different thumbnails as the main section of this page. The homepage shares the same information structure as the website so that users can discover the courses they want in two ways — category, and type. All the course-related information is presented on each page and separated between free and paid lessons to help visitors experience our content faster.
Although the final schedule was delayed due to the Apple review and other new projects. The Demo version was still successfully developed within time and helped the cooperation with GenT. From this project, I also learned how to adjust the design and evaluate conditions quickly under rapid changes and limited resources. The more designer knows about product development, the better the design system we have can effectively help communicate with engineers.
