Role: Senior UI UX Product Designer, Kik Product
FTUE : Overview
Goals: We set out to redesign Kik’s onboarding to tell a story from the very first screen—using a cover illustration that captures the brand’s value of connection and creativity. By simplifying sign-up, improving accessibility, adding micro animations, and integrating ad units naturally, we turned a functional flow into an engaging, story-driven experience that welcomes users into the Kik community.
Challenges: The team faced a major challenge as they had limited experience implementing complex UI and UX systems and were tasked with overhauling the first-time user experience across both iOS and Android. The existing flow was long, inconsistent, and felt more like a government intake form than a social app, asking for unnecessary information that created friction, drop-off, and increasing churn among existing users.
Solution: To solve the onboarding challenge, we began with user research and developed a clear value proposition illustrated through a single, story-driven cover landing page that showcased what Kik offers. Using Lottie animations exported as JSON files, we added lightweight, dynamic motion to guide users through the experience. The redesigned flow launched successfully on both iOS and Android, giving Kik a fresh, modern look that resonated with existing users while attracting new ones. Despite a few minor implementation errors, the update improved user retention, strengthened the brand’s visual identity, and enhanced its App Store presence through refreshed imagery and an updated app icon.
Outcome: The new landing page added significant value to Kik’s legacy app by giving it a fresh, modern look while aligning with current UX standards. I conducted user testing through Userlytics, gathering anecdotal feedback from a guided, unmonitored Figma prototype I created to validate the experience. Overall, the redesign successfully streamlined the FTUE flow, improved sign-up conversion, and helped reduce churn among new users.
KikIt: Overview
Goals: The goal of the Kik•It project was to build on Kik’s existing “Meet New People” feature by adding an asynchronous matching experience that let users connect even when offline. We aimed to give users more choice and control through interest-based topic cards, a social feed, and the option to purchase chats, creating new ways to engage beyond real-time matches.
This feature not only expanded user interaction but also introduced new revenue opportunities for Kik on both iOS and Android platforms while enhancing discovery and personalization.
Challenges: Users could not connect based on interest and sessions times were down.
Solution: Fixing the user experience helped with engagement of the feature on both iOS and Android and build built a new in-app purchase revenue stream for the business.
Outcome: By week 5, the new feature rolled out to 40%, Adoption rate increased to 50%, above 20%, and number of purchases went up to 2x more.
Organization Challenges
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.
FTUE Project: 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.
