Role: Senior UI UX Product Designer, Kik
Challenges & Problems
There were many initial problems with the product when I inherited it in 2022. Here are just a few of the issues.
• No assets and resources were provided.
• iOS and Android platforms were inconsistent and some features were different.
• UI icons were inconsistent and in some cases different assets were used for the same feature on different platforms.
Redesign the First Time User Experience (FTUE)
Our goal is to improve the landing splash page, test accessibility, create screens that have Ad
Units on every screen, to streamline and prioritize the absolute necessary personal information
required to join and access the Kik community, add best practices surface micro animations to
the user upon every step of completion and to introduce new users to the platform upon first
arrival instead of getting stuck and limiting users to gather more personal information.
Old Join Form
Redesigned New User Experience
Kit•It Feature
Kik•It was a feature extension of an already existing feature called "Meet New People" in Kik Messenger App. The existing feature was like a roulette auto matcher of two random users that helped engage or encourage conversation. The Kik•It feature incorporates the asynchronous aspect of the design, while the "Meet New People" feature does a good job of incorporating the synchrounous matching, we wanted to address the a wider interest matcher when users were offline. The concept of online vs offline does not really exist in Kik, but could be incorporated within this feature. The abilility for the user to have agency or user choice based on interests through a social feed, topic cards and buying chats which ended up making extra revenue for the Kik on both iOS and Android platforms.
The Problem
The Situation: Kik already had a feature implemented branded “Meet New People”.
The Problem: The feature worked synchronously, and we wanted to expand the feature to work asynchronously and connect users by their mutual interests.
Goals: To increase engagement, build a new revenue stream, help with onboarding and make new meaningful friends .
Existing Feature
Problem: Random matching mechanic. Not based on user interests. Russian roulette design. Add friend conversion rate low, spam, hookups.
User Testing
A task focused user test was created for a couple of different users in a prototype. A 30 minute unmoderated user test was conducted on the userlytics.com.
Results
KIK has resulted in being profitable every month through IAP of $50
a day in revenue in a limited release on iOS and $500 a day on Android only, with the "Buy More Chats'
feature, that resulted in the design and development of the Kik•It feature.
