How might we keep users engaged throughout their trial?
What we did
Writer’s Block was a randomized AB test backed by a hypothesis: During a trial, users need more hand holding and a clear path of what to do, rather than our current approach of letting them find their way.
Our Goal
Increasing card creation—a vital metric to measure a team’s success in Guru—and second, gather behavioral insights of new teams to inform future projects.
Results
After 4 weeks, our hypothesis was confirmed: our new experience increased engagement with templates, users spent more time spent in app, and created more content than those in the control group.
We knew users needed help during this process, our support team’s confirmed this with qualitative data, but what visual style feels helpful and not intrusive? The first iterations utilized an existing style, but felt clunky and looked more like an alert than a helping hand.
Research and design exploration
Sketches and design exploration
I researched and took inspiration from empty state designs from Gusto, Airbnb, and Dropbox. My goal was prompts and empty states that felt integrated with the page and brought in our brand personality.
With an understanding of what users needed to achieve, I created my own style that would catch your eye, symbolize aspects of our product and be a helpful visual aid. I began on pen and paper, moved to Procreate and eventually into Figma to finalize.
Experiment results
The new experience proved a measurable increase in engagement with templates, more cards created and overall higher activation score from users.
In addition to these metrics, the new illustration style was one our team could build on for all empty states and future in-product illustrations. I formed guidelines for other designers to replicate our style and create their own empty states.
Illustration system artifacts and rules
Final pages and artifacts from the experiment