At a time when the world was six feet apart, our users were logging on—literally becoming someone else. Animaze transforms people into expressive digital avatars powered by motion-tracking, allowing them to become anybody.
QUICK OVERVIEW
In 2021, I led the redesign of Animaze PC’s first-time user experience, streamlining activation with a product walkthrough and Twitch setup guide. This feature improved our metrics –– helping us prepare for another fundraise during a time our company needed it. I contributed across the full UX surface during this project — desktop app, website, branding.
Impact Highlights
+8% First-month Retention
+15% DAU Streaming Online
+30% DAU Customizing Avatars
-10% Monthly Subsciber Churn
My Responsibilities
Researched Users
Designed Interfaces
Validated Assumptions
Ensured Design Quality
Collaborated with Engineering
Key Contributions
First-time User Experience
Streamlined Avatar Customization
Updated Navigation System
Component Consistency
Twitch Streaming Tutorial
Team Composition
Me –– designing
1 Product Manager
14 Remote Engineers
THE CHALLENGE
Getting inexperienced avatar streamers online on platforms like Twitch was ladened with challenges
Despite our customers having twice as more retention when they stream Animaze to Twitch and video call tools, only 40% of our daily active users did.
Research insights
The process of streaming with Animaze can be laborious and technical. Previous benchmark testing revealed customers took 30 mins unguided and had to go through 3 different applications to set up.
A direct connection to Twitch was not possible at the time because it wasn't supported by current API access, and because our engineering team's priorities and time resourcing.
Customization made us distinct from our competitors.Every other competitor allows importing of custom avatars with no native customization, but only Animaze lets you customize any avatars in-app.
PROCESS AND EXPLORATION
Designing the onboarding experience
The principles informing my decisions
See Yourself Move
Empower motion-tracking and let the technology speak for itself as a user goes through Animaze.
Feel Represented
Supporting all sort of identities by uplifting customization inside of our experience.
Unblock Development
With our runway running low, we made sure to design using existing frameworks.
Expediting development by creating repeatable components
After running competitive analyses and aligning with engineering, I designed two components – one for teaching people how to stream and one for familiarizing users to the interface – helping expedite timelines.
Streaming Instructions
Interface Tooltips
Proposed onboarding flow
Encouraging customization through a home screen redesign
Midway through the project, we discovered that only 40% of our customers could find our customization feature, our competitive advantage We also had similar discoverability issues with our subscription features. At this point, we realized that we had to revisit our home screen before we could teach people how to use Animaze.
Component changes
Adding in a Subscription Features Menu and a Subscribe Now Button
Redesigned Toolbelt: Surfaced Customization,Subtle Focus on Stream, and Categorized Features (Card Sort)
RESEARCH RESULTS
Found Streaming?
New
6/6
5/5
Old
2/6
4/5
Found Customization?
New
6/6
4.33/5
Old
2/6
5/5
rate of ease
confidence rating
FINAL EXPERIENCE
Putting it all together
Walking through the flow
Qualitative feedback from user testers
QUICK OVERVIEW
In 2021, I led the redesign of Animaze PC’s first-time user experience, streamlining activation with a product walkthrough and Twitch setup guide. This feature improved our metrics –– helping us prepare for another fundraise during a time our company needed it. I contributed across the full UX surface during this project — desktop app, website, branding.
Impact Highlights
+8% First-month Retention
+15% DAU Streaming Online
+30% DAU Customizing Avatars
-10% Monthly Subsciber Churn
My Responsibilities
Researched Users
Designed Interfaces
Validated Assumptions
Ensured Design Quality
Collaborated with Engineering
Key Contributions
First-time User Experience
Streamlined Avatar Customization
Updated Navigation System
Component Consistency
Twitch Streaming Tutorial
Team Composition
Me –– designing
1 Product Manager
14 Remote Engineers
RETROSPECTIVE
At any stage of design, showing real-life experiences from users can truly shape decisions and empower teams
During our 2020 Winter All Hands, I showed a video of our users connecting successfully to Twitch using an early prototype of our onboarding flow. Showing that to my team created better empathy for our users, and strengthened investor confidence on our work.
Eight years into my career, here's what I would have changed:
Do more competitive analysis on tools. Back then, I wouldn't return to my competiitve analysis and seek inspiration for new patterns. Retrospectives can reshape and change perspectives.
Optimizing design decisions for Web instead of Mobile. I originally worked on mobile for the first 3 years of my career. This was the first time I was designing for web, I did not reexamine my learnings from mobile (large touch areas), leading to chunky interfaces.
Improved organization on components.Even if tokens and slots weren't a thing back then, there were so many opportunities to organize and preserve consistency through spacing and color palettes back then.
