What would you say you do here?
Currently
- Director UX & Design – ShareThis
Previously
- Creative Director – USA TODAY Sports
- Owner / Creative Director – Levin Media
- Art Director – Armada Skis
Once upon a time
Early in my career, I had the distinct honor of working alongside some of the most talented and creative folks in the action sports and outdoors industries.
Key takeaways
Never stop learning
Create great experiences
The process
Learn
Build
Measure
Repeat
Share Buttons
ShareThis
Product history
- 2007: ShareThis launches one of the first, easy-to-configure multi-channel share buttons
- 2011: Business pivots to media sales
- 2012: De-prioritizes and off-shores development and maintenance of sharing buttons
- 2016: Anemic or negative growth, low conversion, high rates of churn
- 2017: Re-prioritize commitment to publishers
Design research
Publisher Surveys
Data analysis
Competitive analysis
Configuration exploration
Flow testing
Prototyping
Share button configuration
Interactions and animations
Sticky buttons
On hover animation, hide/show toggle, and responsive behavior
What’s under the hood?
Take the prototypes for a test drive
Download and extract the .zip file. Run the extracted file in Origami Studio. (This was my first full scale attempt using Origami. Fair warning!) ShareButtonConfig.zip
Download and extract the .zip file. Run the extracted file in Origami Studio. StickyButtons.zip
Handoffs
Specs
Video
Prototype
Launch
Post Launch
Funnel analysis
Button stats
User testing
For The Win!
USA TODAY Sports
In The Beginning
For The Win launched in April 2013 to dramatically grow USA TODAY Sports’ digital audience. Drawing inspiration from BuzzFeed and other digital media upstarts, FTW became the first — and best — social content site focused on sports. The strategy was entirely geared toward social and mobile engagement, as well as the young audiences and behaviors driving content consumption in those circles.
A Brand Is Born
The success has been both critical and practical. FTW is a media darling, with coverage appearing in Digiday, Ad Age, Nieman Lab, Atlantic Wire and Sports Business Journal. The site has grown to as many as 17 million monthly users and generated more than $5 million in 2015, operating at a 70%+ profit margin. In Q3 2015, FTW set records for unique users (40mm, + 14% YOY), organic referrals (44mm, +33% YOY) and page views (128mm (+23% YOY).
2013: FTW v1.0
- Cluttered UI
- Poor information architecture
- Not mobile friendly
- Minimal business consideration
2014: FTW 2.0
Organize & Stabilize
Mobile first
All about the shares
Business requirements
Ad matrix
A/B testing
When a visitor arrived from Facebook, we showed them only a Facebook share button. This increased shares by ~150%. The same experiment for Twitter was inconclusive.
Redesigning share buttons and adding a call to action above the buttons increased clicks by 3% at the top of the article, and 18% at the bottom of the article.
Removing infinite scroll from the bottom of mobile article pages increased overall page engagement (clicks) by 16%
Removing thumbnails from the sidebar decreased module clicks by 23%. Increasing the size of thumbnail images increased clicks by 32%. Moving the sidebar from right to left increased module clicks an additional 19%, and increased overall page engagement by 3.4%
2015: FTW 3.0
Create a scaleable publishing platform
Improve readability across devices
Implement A/B test results
Maximize value for advertisers
25
Increase in unique visits YOY
70
Mobile audience
40
Of USA TODAY's total social referrals
45
Sites running lawrence
