The UK's most agile influencer marketing platform, delivering all the tools needed for influencers and brands to create captivating content together.
Audition
Revamp
UX/UI Design
Introduction
Connecting brands with influencers
SoSquared is a UK startup aiming to revolutionize user-generated content by linking businesses with creators to expand the UK's user-generated content scene.
Context
Revamp all digital products and enhance the user experience
Once the Break-even point gets close, the Startup get ready for the next round: Scale. I was challenged to revamp all digital products, refreshing the User Interfaces and enhancing user experience with good practices.
Solution
Audit all startup legacy, analyse competitors, investigate about the user profile and bridging to connect and engage to the target audience.
Project Goals
Create a visual concept for the brand that catches the user's interest
Create consistent style guidelines for cross-platform
Enhance the best possible user experience and accessibility
Redesign Website, Platform and Mobile app
Design Process
Filling the briefing gaps
As a fast-paced culture, sometimes the startups lack documentation. To overcome missing details about personas and business goals - keeping the limited UI budget in mind - I conducted desk research and competitor analysis that helped me define the target audience and gain a deeper understanding of the business.
Desk Research
Bring Stats to the table
The project had two sides.
The brand side - the business side interest that I would find ways to connect their needs showing the content creators benefits.
The creator's side - I would understand the motivations for UGC, or at least get some basic information about ages to lead the visual approach.
The desk research helped me find insights about the business's annual revenue, main benefits stats for brands that already use UGC and how the GenZ and Millennials behave in relation to UGC.
Insights for brands
The great demand for authenticity nowadays
90% of consumers say authenticity matters for supporting brands.
79% of people say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions.
UGC are 100.6% more likely to convert.
83% of marketers agree that authenticity is important to their brands.
Insights for creators
Millennials are both professional content creators and consumers
Millennials (ages 25 and above) are the biggest content drivers — contributing over 70% of all UGC;
Millennials spend 18 hours per day with media, and 30% of that in UGC;
Millennials believe UGC is 35% more memorable than other media;
97% of Gen Z use social media sources for shopping inspiration;
65% of Gen Z use social media to find entertaining content;
61% of Gen Z are interested in watching more video content.
Benchmark
The behavior of SoSquared competitors
This analysis provides an overview of two competitors
(tribe and influee) and their respective landing pages.
I conducted a design review on the user interface and reverse process to understand more about:
How they organize the information hierarchy
How they communicate with the brands and creators (the ton of voice)
- Understand the visual culture around the UGC theme
Get the main line of comparison and qualitiy of visual designs for manage the deliverable expectations
UX / UI Audition
To fix something that's not working, we need to know why it's not working.
I analyzed the website using usability heuristics, visual design, accessibility, responsiveness, and content. This documentation helped me create the start point for future improvements and alignment of expectations.
The Solution
Rebranding
After analyzing some compositions, I delivered a fresh new brand and style guide that addressed the previous issues of legibility, colour, and accessibility. This brand led the all-style guide that went cross-platform.
Website
Revamping the website crafting page per page
The main objective was to establish a distinctive brand identity that connects with influencers and user-generated content that appeals to Millennials and Gen Z. These groups expect authenticity from brands, which made it a must-have to craft a genuine brand and website. By doing so, SoSuqared could stand out from its competitors and create a unique voice and style.
For the Website, I follow the workflow:
1. User Flows (provided for the client)
2. Wireframing
3. User Interface
As the startup worked with freelancer contracts devs ( Bubble - No Code ) and the CTO has expertise in Bubble, I hadn´t greater contact with the dev team.
Before the deployment, I was invited to Audit the new website and highlight the gaps from the prototype in Figma to the final product.
Platform
Enhancing the user experience and user interface
The user journey and interface of the platform have been entirely revamped. Additional feature was demanded for agencies of influencers, and the wallet for money transitions were introduced, helping the usability for brands, agencies, and influencers.
Regarding budget and roadmaps, the platform was built by journeys. Many times I created pages with generic components that were enough to the dev team follow the UI pattern and style.
Mobile APP
When primary users transition to mobile, it becomes more than a mere platform variation
I was invited to work on maintaining consistency across platforms as we decided to build a mobile app natively. To achieve this, I designed the screens, created user journeys, and developed generic components in the same way as the previous web platform process.
Learnings
This project showed me how cool and beneficial user-generated content (UGC) is, and it made me understand user behaviour better.
Working remotely, I learned to keep communication super clear and straightforward—never assume the other person knows everything you do. I also figured out that communication and having a clear plan are key, even when the process doesn't go in a straight line.
Taking the time to document and explain every little decision we made built trust and kept everything running smoothly. This approach made the whole process of communicating and setting expectations the smoothest I've ever experienced.
The greater the team's level of confidence in your work, the greater your autonomy.
I learned that while no-code technologies are great for validating product ideas, they can slow down and get more complicated as you try to scale up.
I learned the basis of any project is the relationship. From the designer to the team. The relationship of users with the product. The relationship between the brand and the creators. Trust and authenticity lead to loyalty.
Big Thanks
A huge shoutout to the SoSquared team, especially Greg Donnelly. The entire process ran seamlessly, fostering a partnership marked by autonomy and trust for both parties.