Mini Movies

A monthly recap video to drive organic growth in the Chatbooks app

Time Frame: 6.2022—03.2024
Client: Chatbooks 
My Role: UX/UI Design, Template design
Collaborated with: PM, UXR, Developers, Analytics

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Overview

In 2022, I worked on the “For You” team at a subscription photo book company called Chatbooks. The goal of this team was to create content that would drive organic growth and create value for existing customers. Unfortunately, the “For You“ tab felt like a Chatbook ad rather than personalized user content.

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Problem Statement

New users were getting more and more expensive.

We had two main questions:

  • How could we make the “for you” tab feel personalized so users would return again and again to the app to see it?

  • How could we acquire more organic customers?

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Drive organic growth by giving our users something worth sharing.

Goals

We wanted to turn this:

Into this:

A digital recap video of a photo book can be shared with non-Chatbook users. Those potential new users might be interested in: 

  • Starting their own photo book collection

  • Ordering a copy of the book

The recap video also created a retention tool for users who were in our subscription product. If they were sending recap videos each month to grandma and grandpa, those loving relatives were likely to find value and encourage their kids to keep making books and keep sending them digital recaps.

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Research

A shareable recap video, which we later named Mini Movies felt like a good direction. We did some initial research to be sure this feature would be a good fit for our users. We wanted to ensure our users use social media and would have reason to share these videos. After moderated user interviews and a few surveys, we found out that:

80% of our users use Instagram at least daily. 

  • Top reasons for not creating and posting Reels included: no time, not knowing how to, and not having an interest in doing so.

The findings from the survey and interviews showed us that our users do use social media, especially Instagram. Maybe creating shareable content for them to share could solve the “I don’t have time” and the “I don’t know how concern.”

Mini Movie Designs

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  • I created a screen that would show directly after someone purchased a book. It’s job was to

    1. let you know hat your purchase went through

    2. and prompt you to view and share your Mini Movie

  • How could these two screens be combined for easier sharing?

    Could the printing confirmation at the top be handled by a toast?

    The sharing options seem a bit overwhelming. Is there a way to simplify? maybe only show the most common and everything else could be accessed in the IOS share sheet?

V1

V2

  • How could these two screens be combined for easier sharing?

    Could the printing confirmation at the top be handled by a toast?

    The sharing options seem a bit overwhelming. Is there a way to simplify? maybe only show the most common and everything else could be accessed in the IOS share sheet?

  • I designed the printing confirmation to be a toast, allowing for more real estate for the user’s content.

    I moved the share options to be front and center and simplified the sharing options. By the time I designed this screen we had data to inform which buttons I kept.

Here is what the template I designed looks like in motion. The template displays all the photos in a book up to a limit of 90 photos. (for faster loading time and a more shareable video). It matches the look and feel of Chatbooks, and emphasizes the user’s content.

V1 | Closing the loop

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*This is designed by another designer* (I’ve included it because it is an important part of the flow)

At the end of the year at Chatbooks we tend to move teams, I moved teams and handed off the project to another designer. Below are her designs, which are a nice way of closing the loop. After a user has watched a Mini movie they have they have two options:

  • start a photo book

  • or buy a copy of the book

Outcomes

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People loved these videos. They felt they were simple and easy to share. They delighted users because they provided a way to stay connected with family who lived far away.

“I love that it’s automatically making it. I’m in the generation of Reels and TikTok, but I’m not good at those. For me as a new mom, I put in zero effort.”
— User Feedback
“We don’t live near our family, so we love those videos.”
— User Feedback
“ I just add music and I don’t have to worry about timing or anything.”
— User Feedback

We made a feature that users loved. It gave them more value and delighted them when they had nothing to do. But how did we do in acquiring more customers? Here are the results after just one month:

20%

Of people who make a mini movie share

452

people made books from Mini Movies

625

People want to buy a copy of the book shown by the Mini Movie

After just one month of data, we validated that this feature brings new organic growth. It isn’t the viral organic growth we were hoping for, but definitely expands Chatbook’s network of customers and provides value to existing customers.

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Next steps

The most interesting finding to me was that more people want to buy a copy than make their own book, despite that being the secondary and more hidden CTA. This leads me to wonder if people would like to subscribe to a loved one’s photo book subscriptions.

I would love to explore the group who wanted to buy a copy of the book. Some of my questions include:

  • Does this set of users want a copy of every book in their friend or family member’s subscription? (The primary use case I’m thinking of is Grandma wanting all the books her grandkids are in)

  • Is there a different flow that could be designed where you can invite people to buy a book you have made?

  • Would the people who want a copy be more likely to accept an invite to make a book once they can see the copy in hand?