Let’s set some context…

Creating awesome, engaging video content on your phone is easier and faster than ever — you can now search, save, and license footage directly on your iOS or Android devices with the Shutterstock mobile app.

Social media clips, marketing materials, memes — whatever you’re making, use footage to put your message in motion the moment inspiration strikes, and reach your followers, customers, and friends without ever putting down your phone. The Shutterstock mobile app makes it a breeze.

The way people make and share content is rapidly changing —there’s a push to respond to fast-changing trends while engaging discerning communities with quick and sleek production. We designed the app with these changes in mind, building in tools to help you start, share, and organize projects when you’re away from your desktop. Now, with thousands and thousands of clips a simple tap away, the Shutterstock mobile app is a must-have for mobile-minded creators, marketers, and social media mavens who are never far from their phone.

The Problem

Our native app customers have come to expect that they can access our entire library on the app. As a commitment to our mission of allowing our customers to get access to our assets wherever they need it drove us to work to support our footage library on both iOS and Android.

User research
Users expressed a desire to use Shutterstock video on their phone when creating assets for social media. They disliked the need to use a computer and only wanted to use one device, their phone.

My Role and the team

2018-2019 - IC UX designer
2019-2020 - UX director overseeing designer and project
2020 - Product manager in Q1 and Q2 while filling in for the PO who was on paternity leave.
NOTE - This project took a couple years to complete due to the native apps team being under resourced.

I was the starting IC designer on this project conducting the research, validating designs, and taking the project from initial ideation all the way though dev hand off. After which I was promoted to manager where the designer that took over the project was on my team and he continued to shepherd the project though. In the same year I also was promoted to Director where my role remained the same.

In early 2020 I was tapped to step in for the native apps product owner while he was to be on paternity leave for 4 months. It was during this time that I also acted as product owner to help get the app ready for release. During that time I worked closely with marketing developing a go to market plan, our press team to write blogs and press releases, as well as all the other duties that a PO is expected to take on. This was all while balancing my work load as UX director. This was a challenging time but I am so proud of the team’s work and that this project became a reality.

Research Goal

Research Goal
Our interviews with customers hinted early on that our native app customers love using the app to collect assets for use later as well as license them while on their phone. Many users even download, create an ad, and upload to Instagram all on their phone, siting that “using a computer makes it feel like work.”
With this in mind we asked them via survey in 2018 if they would ever have interest in video assets on their devices. Here are the results of that survey.

Competitor analysis

Getty Images:

• iOS only

• Offers video in a tab view with search results.

• Allows for adding to boards (collections)

• Auto plays upon load, 1x

• Scrubbing only upon isolation mode (detail page)

• Allows signed in users to share, favorite, and download

• No in app purchases allowed, users MUST have an existing subscription

iStock:

• Same as above but also has similar videos for each asset page

• No favorites

• No in app purchases allowed, users MUST have an existing subscription

Notes:

These were the only 2 stock apps that I could find that had any kind of stock video offering at the time of this analysis in 2018.

Other patterns worth noting:

• Hamburger menus can be used when you have more products.

• Carts are often used to create a single check out experience.

• “Single service” sale apps create an experience where a user drills into the product/task they require (closer to what Shutterstock users do in our image offering). Then has a check out for that single item. ie TaskRabbit, Handy, Fiverr.

Measure

Numbers pulled 2 weeks post launch (April 2020)

• Signups

  • iOS - Signups increased ⬆12.7% over the last 2 weeks compared to the previous 2 weeks.

  • Android - Signups increased ⬆15.3% over the last 2 weeks compared to the previous 2 weeks.

• Searches 

  • iOS - Searches increased ⬆12.7% over the last 2 weeks compared to the previous 2 weeks. 

  • Android - Searches increased ⬆9.7% over the last 2 weeks compared to the previous 2 weeks. 

Other changes related to this deployment:

• Change collections icon to heart increased collection creation. More information on the heart icon project can be seen on the page with details about that project.

  • iOS - Increased ⬆17.4% over the last 2 weeks compared to the previous 2 weeks.

  • Android - Increased ⬆56.7% over the last 2 weeks compared to the previous 2 weeks.

• Although sales wasnt a driving KPI we surprisingly saw a good amount of sales grossing over $10k in our first 3 weeks. almost 25% of sales were 4K files! < our highest priced footage product offered in the app.
  

Was the project successful?

I think we were successful on several levels:

1. Adding video to our native apps not only increased engagement but also lead to quite a few sales (not a KPI) especially of 4k assets ($179ea).

2. Our team was able to show that there was increased search activity due to the updates and an increase of “collecting” behavior.

3. App installs also increased due to press coverage.