Redesigning 40 Products into One Holistic Experience

A case study in flipping the product strategy to make an unwieldy collection of 40+ digital subscription products usable

My Role: Creative Direction, Business, Product & Design Strategy
From: March 2021 - July 2022

The Challenge

The goal of this project was to recapture the elegant simplicity of the early subscription days with a fresh interface and experience that clarified the value propositions and blended to make an enhanced experience.

  1. Restructure the product structure to make it simpler for members to know what they own.
  2. Make owning multiple services additive by enhancing the experience with each new service and increasing retention.

My Role

I provided creative direction for the duration of this project, from the onset in March 2021 to the delivery to members in July 2022. I led a team of 10 designers and user researchers through Ideation, Prototypes, Testing, and Deployment.

Organizing all the existing elements across 40 services to fit into an architecture of just five levels

The Process

1. Empathize — Understanding what’s broken

Well before the project began in earnest, I had the UX Research team regularly conduct customer interviews with members to understand their needs and the job they paid The Motley Fool to accomplish.

2. Defining — Making the case that we have found the right problem

Each archetype segmentation had variations in our time commitment and experience level. However, overall, the majority of members all came to The Motley Fool with the same Jobs-to-be-Done. We found that across the board, members prioritized finding new stocks to buy and staying advised on the investments they owned.

3. Ideation — a cacophony of potential solutions

I guided our UX Research team on the preferred structure of competitive analysis to investigate how 27 other finance and media companies handled a growing suite of subscription products and how they kept the value clearly defined.

4. Prototyping — Making new solutions feel real

The Head of Product and I reimagined the systems architecture of the collection of 40 products as components of five concurrent levels. Using Loom, Zoom, Google Slides, and Slack, I helped socialize the shift to all departments and collected feedback on the impact on each department.

5. Testing — learning about our solutions and our users

Testing occurred through the prototyping process, often shaping the next stage of revisions. Designers tested concept mocks, language, and user flows to validate the product direction.

6. Implementation — bringing ideas to life

For the massive undertaking that was the design process, at the end of the day, design alone will not solve members’ problems. The design becomes the solution when it is built and deployed to live.

High-Fidelity Responsive Mockups

The Solution

To better serve our members, the 40 subscription products were all folded into one common site experience that broadened with more value as the member rose through the distinct membership levels.

Lessons Learned

Throughout the process, I held biweekly retrospectives with the team to understand pain points and where we could improve the process.

  • The most actionable lesson learned was that investing in the right tools and systems can make all the difference. Shifting to Figma just before this project commenced streamlined the ability to quickly turn designs into prototypes and share those assets. The design process had less friction and allowed the team to achieve more.
  • Lastly, the positive takeaway is that we can indeed do big things. A company, the size of a cruise ship, will lament it is not as agile as a speedboat, but it can still pivot. The Head of Product never gave into the doubt that this was too big to accomplish and advocated accordingly, inspiring others and eventually making the change we believed was possible.

Next Steps

Bringing all the stock recommendations together into one place was a significant step forward for the high-value members, now considered on the highest level of membership. However, more work is still ahead to assemble those ideas into a portfolio.

The Impact

This solution concluded nearly 20 years of a legacy approach to product development (built on the outdated newsletter model). Not only did this simplify the member experience, but it also significantly reduced operational overhead for PMs, Tech, Editorial, and Customer Service, previously juggling resources to account for all 40 bespoke products.

Member satisfaction lept by 34%.

Early quantitative results show member satisfaction leaping by 34%. Qualitative feedback includes grateful members who finally understand their product and its value.

Unlisted

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Creative leader at the intersection of design, product, and tech. Writing mostly about design, CSS, product strategy, leadership, investing, and more.

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Greg Robleto

Creative leader at the intersection of design, product, and tech. Writing mostly about design, CSS, product strategy, leadership, investing, and more.