Very impressive, both the volume of work and its quality, also the attention to detail and the depth of thought behind it, your presentation is very beautiful. The presentation was both visual and in terms of its storytelling, well organized, there are a lot of interesting ideas that you suggested. You took the project with both hands and squeezed all the juice out of it. It makes me very excited to see it. You were confronted not only with the collaboration in terms of transferring the tasks from one to the other, but also through the reinforcements and thinking about analytics and how everything must be backed up by data and rewards for users. I really liked the prototype, its story. The integration with Slack is very clever, I don't think we even thought about it when we were talking about the notifications all the time - so inhale.
Founded in 2011, Minute Media is a global media and technology powerhouse with a mission to empower sports fans worldwide. Serving millions of users, Minute Media operates as a digital media platform, owning popular brands like DBLTAP, Mental Floss, and 90min. The company's unique business model blends professional journalism with user-generated content, utilizing technology to cater to diverse sports interests. Minute Media's goal is to foster a strong sense of community and participation among sports enthusiasts, creating an engaging and inclusive sports content experience.
Our entry point was 90 MIN, the football brand that served as our gateway to exploring the Voltax system at Minute Media. Born out of the passion of sports fans, the 90min brand focuses on news and content analysis.
Situated within the Minute Media ecosystem, the "Voltax" product acts as a collaborative multi-text editor, facilitating the joint efforts of writers and editors across the company's diverse brands.
From the outset, our primary question was clear: How could we enhance communication and collaboration between editors and writers? Before fully grasping our purpose, we embarked on a journey to comprehend the intricacies of communication within the Voltax system. Our project role involved defining communication improvement goals, identifying challenges arising from Voltax usage and user cooperation, understanding the impact of communication factors on overall company productivity, and ultimately devising enhancements to align the existing system with the company's KPIs.
Our hypothesis centered around communication challenges and collaboration issues among various platform users. The existing product team acknowledged the problem's impact and directed us to conduct competitor and user research.
We translated the communication and collaboration difficulties into a research plan by breaking down these concepts into operational ideas. To understand effective communication and cooperation, we defined these terms, conducted a comparative analysis of similar products, and examined general trends. Competitor research explored macro-level trends, while user research delved into micro-level interactions between editors and writers using Voltax.
We searched for products that we think have similarities with Voltax
Research focus: Collaboration, CMS, Project management & Rich text editors.
Main competitors: Monday, Jira, Docs, Clickup, Figma, Trello etc…
Features comparison :We compared the features of the different platforms & checked whether they exist in Voltax.
See the competitors analysis comparison we've made, categorized based on each platform's primary use.
Our approach involved identifying recurring patterns and drawing inspiration from positive aspects. In cases of identifying negatives, we cross-checked their existence in Voltex. Subsequently, we extracted key features from each platform, conducting a comprehensive review and comparison.
Key takeaways:
The main advantages of this research method is the qualitative information that focuses on the perspective of the users and thus a deep understanding of their motives, behaviors, demands and expectations. It also helps identify problems, pain points and difficulties that users may face when using the product, and in addition which alternative tools are used.
Another advantage is the verification of assumptions, the interviews help us confirm or deny our assumptions about the users of the product.
3 interviews, 1 Writer and 2 Editors: Our goal was to learn about the different ways of collaborative work between writers and editors as well as their potential pain points in the Voltax platform.
Findings, quotes and key pain points:
Tom, Writer
Lack of immediacy: It emerged that there is a gap in communication about important work-related tasks or messages that could be lost. Regular and general work calls are made in Slack and urgent tasks are sent in Mail, but they are not immediate.
Use and switch between platforms: There is a feeling of wasting time due to the use of several platforms at the same time such as Google Sheets, Slack, Mail and Voltax.
Lack of notifications: there are no feedbacks and notifications about activity in the system, which creates uncertainty and wastes time searching for the various feedbacks. For example, when the editor makes corrections to the article or if the editor belongs to the author of the article - no notifications are received.
There is no learning from mistakes: due to communication gaps, there is no feedback to the writer from the editor or a framework for relevant corrections, thus, the writers do not improve from article to article and do not optimize their writing.
Quentin, Editor
Use and transition between platforms: they write the shared ideas for the articles on a shared "Google Sheets" document. In addition, they use "Slack" as a communication tool between colleagues and "Monday" to follow up on complex issues.
Streamlining the joint work: there was a need for a system that could support brainstorming to produce new content in cases where they do not meet face-to-face.
Sean, Editor
Using and switching between platforms and streamlining work: there is a feeling of wasting time due to using and switching between several platforms, such as Google sheets, Slack, Mail, Voltax. In addition, updating and monitoring activity is a factor that takes a significant amount of time at work.
Streamlining the joint work: there is no synchronization between the editors and the writers because there are no notifications about any new activity in the system and the writers cannot know that they have received feedback on their work - the work time is lengthened and there is no efficiency.
Main pain points:
Main pain points:
In addition, we also recognized that there was a lack of a way for direct communication on the platform.
One of the methods we used to pinpoint the problem, is an empathy map, this is a method where you can get a deeper understanding of our users and thus prioritize their needs.
We considered our two main types of users - editor and writer, we opened a collaborative file and simultaneously recorded for each type of user what they say, think, do and feel.
"Saying" axis: we referred to what they specifically said in the interviews.
"Thinking" axis: we tried to think about what we are not ready to say out loud.
"Doing" axis:
"Feeling" axis: we tried to think about what worries them, and what they are excited about.
In our journey of developing a profound understanding of personas, we employed the "how might we" method to articulate the problem, creating a question that would guide us towards actionable solutions. This technique facilitated smoother access to solutions and the corresponding design elements.
The process led us to the ultimate "how might we" question:
How might we improve writers and editors collaboration on Voltax platform?
We believe this question comprehensively addresses the core problem, specifically tailored to the two primary personas on the platform.
At this stage we defined KPI - Key Performance Indicators, which are the parameters that we measure and determine what will be considered "success" at the organizational-business level and characteristic of the product. We chose to define general and secondary goals according to the solution we wanted to offer. Correct determination of these indicators will allow us to make characteristic decisions in an informed and accurate manner.
Main KPIs:
Secondary KPIs:
Writer:
To address the challenges posed by the current system, we opted for solutions focused on optimizing work management and enhancing communication between writers and editors. Initially considering chat and communication features, we ultimately delved into work management, encompassing the following:
Following the selection of the solution for our MVP version, we transitioned to the wireframes stage to transform conceptual ideas into tangible product representations. Each group's concept, grounded in preliminary research, user interviews, competitor analysis, personas, empathy maps, and the chosen "how might we" question, aligned with defined user flows for the system roles.
To foster diverse ideas, we split into two groups, each crafting a distinct concept. Through presentations, comparisons, and discussions, we identified the best ideas from each group, amalgamating them into a wireframe that encompasses the most promising concepts.
The wireframes feature basic versions presenting a table, considering a Kanban display, and detailing article statuses derived from user interviews. They also incorporate a holistic view of the product process, referencing a dashboard component for analytics and various filters.
I would like to say thanks to my great team, I had the chance to work and learn a lot from you all:
Nimrod Sagisman, Noam Halak, Shahar Fisher and Itai Steinberg.
Final grade in the course: A+.
Revital Markovich, Product Design Team Lead & Internship mentor:
"I have no way to describe your seriousness in all the meetings. Nadav, Liron and Michal did not get to see the collaboration between you either. You really worked in collaboration between editors and writers and the collaboration between you was amazing. Your division into groups, the way you managed everything, the thought processes. When you had to work as a group you worked as a group and when you had to work as individuals or split into 2 you knew how to get the benefit of it. I think you deserve a very big shot for that too, you managed to get the best out of every minute in this internship. I think you did an excellent job, you are a really good group as one who has gone through several groups, you can see it both in the presentation and in the in-person, you have really taken it to the extreme, from the point of view of the quality of the product, you have reached a very far point, we are already in discussions that are far beyond what we expected in terms of the details and the flow and that is the net From the fact that you pulled hard the whole way.'
Tal Gilad, Product Designer & Internship mentor:
"It was super impressive, your way was also very, very impressive, really excellent work. I will also say that as someone who comes like you from a psychology background, it was amazing for me to see how you integrated everything you study in your degree, all kinds of theories and findings into this work, into the user experience, all the things you brought up were super relevant and it just shows how these fields are very close And how important it is to understand the behavioral psychology within the field and also in terms of your UI design is really at a really, really good level, well done to you.'
Nadav Hauptman, Product DesignTeam Lead:
"I must continue on the same line and point out that I have seen several groups that submitted college projects in internships and I think you have really reached a very high and far level. It really makes me want to take these things, measure and see if you managed to reach these KPIs. It's so packed in the form of starting to build it and measuring, really nice work."
Liron Motavasel, Product Designer:
"You really deserve to be applauded for the work you did, you really went through the whole process from start to finish. The way you presented it, the presentation was amazing. The flow and the way you conveyed things - you really did a crazy job and you can see it, very beautiful."
