Places to Go

Enhanced local curation experience
that helps users find the "Places to Go"
Role
Sole Product Designer
Team
Task Force Team, which is a Cross-Functional Team of about 30 People
Timeline
March, 2022
- April, 2023
(14 months)
Platform
Launched on App
(IOS, Android) and Web.
Live Website ↗︎
Key Responbilities
 Hands-on with Ownership  Responsible for every phase from building the product strategy, to refining every detail of design assets.
 UX Research + Data analysis  Led user interviews, surveys, usability testing, and data analysis to gather insights for successful pivoting and improvements.
 Rationale Design Advocate  Consistently presented my design rationale to stakeholders and executives for team alignment.

Business Goal

Naver, the Korea's top search engine, aims to expand its local discovery experience

Naver users mainly browse local content on social media, then visit Naver to search for place information and navigation. At this point, the company is trying to evolve to a complete discovery experience as a business opportunity to increase traffic and ad sales.

Situation

But, Naver's previous approaches could not engage users significantly

Naver's recent products, 'What to Do' and 'My Place Feed,' generated low user engagement despite several improvements.

Behavior

We launched 'Places to Go,' the local curation service with a map view and save feature

'Places to Go' enables users to browse local curations personalized to their local areas, uncover hidden gems on the map view, and save them for later.

Impact

'Places to Go' achieved 446K DAUs
and increased traffic and ad sales

User insights

What kind of local discovery experience
do users expect from Naver?

When we conducted user research, we evaluated the entire user journey, from browsing local content to using the search feature on Naver, to get valuable insights shown below.
Users are interested in Naver’s data trends, such as the most popular or highly reviewed places, rather than individual reviews.
Users set primarily their local areas as their favorite areas on 'My Place Feed.' But Naver already knew that from e-commerce activities!
I set hypotheses based on the core problems and user insights.

Hypothesis setting

The easier discovery of the best places to go,
the more users engaged

Sub-Hypotheses
If we provide curations that consider both Naver's data trends and users' local areas, users will easily discover places to go.
If we provide a map view to explore places in their areas, users will engage more with the service.
If we enable the save feature for interests, most users will use it and visit the service continously.
Success Metrics
# of Active Users
Traffic
Add to Favorite Rate

Design explorations

Find the optimal flow and layout
to present the ideas within the hypotheses

I explored various options while articulating the hypotheses and gathering opinions from multiple teams.
Can I show you a mix of content from different areas?
Distinguished with tabs or pages? Combined in a single page?
How will we provide a map view?
Default? Secondary?
What will users want to save?
Area? Category? Subject?
Of course, I could have conducted AB testing to validate each hypothesis. However, this is not viable for the main page of the Naver app, because we only release new updates publicly after sufficient internal testing.
Therefore, I evolved the design based on customer-centric evidence (data analysis, user testing, and benchmarking of previous practices) and chose the best option to launch.
1. Seperated with tabs?
Travel content is not as interesting daily as being categorized into tabs!
From benchmarking of previous practices
2. Map as a default?
On the main page, the image is more engaging than a map!
From data analysis
3. Save areas and categories?
Areas and Categories are not appealing enough
for users to save!
From user testing
4. Focus on recommendations
to avoid a cold start?
Users wanted to distinguish between recommendations
and saved one!
From user testing

The Option we chose

Usability tests

Improved user flow in a more user-friendly
by leading UTs before launch

I advocated for conducting usability tests to ensure a clear flow before releasing them on the Naver app, which had 30M DAUs! Since there were no UX researchers, I led the overall process by learning myself and getting help from external experts.

Kick-off Document
Snap Shot
Result Analysis

I found two critical problems!

Users failed to understand the relationship between two pages if entered by swiping, a common interation on the app.
Over 50% of participants missed
the ‘Add to favorite’ button since it is a new feature.

So, I improved the flow considering the development cost and launching schedule.

Navigation Bar Applied Instead of Swiping

Now, users can access the Favorites page only through the Discover page, noticing that the Favorites page is for favorite hashtags added on the Discover page.

'Add to Favorite' Tooltips and Pop-ups Added

They show essential information based on users' familiarity with the Add to Favorite feature without interrupting their browsing experience.

Iterations

After launch, Increased user engagement
by optimizing UIs

For the agile launch, I focused on delivering the improved user flow, leveraging our design system.

After launch, I analyzed the data of 'Places to Go' and other main pages and conducted user surveys. I was able to find insights to increase user engagement and test it. Fortunately, it worked!

Discover Page
  • Insight 1️:  Users felt overwhelmed by too much information
about preview text & reviewer profiles.
  • Insight 2:  Refresh Button affects the increase
in clicks.
  • Outcome: +398% Clicks per User, +38% Add to Favorite occurred.
Favorites Page
  • Insight 1️: 2-column view received
1.5 times more clicks compared to the 1-column view.
  • Insight 2: Empty state performed the highest in adding favorite subjects.
  • Outcome: +431% clicks per user, 35% of the total Add to Favorite occurred.

Final Design

Introducing Places to Go

On the 'Discover' tab,
browse curations focusing on locations

Users can get to know featured places at a glance.

Personalized data trends
to users' local areas

Map view for subject

Users can identify where featured places are located, filter to specific areas, and save a spot for later.

Add subjects
to the 'Favorites' tab

Users can now easily save their preferred subjects to the 'Favorites' tab and access them later for inspiration.

Retrospective

I will explore data-driven methods further to make rational and agile decisions!

User research or previous practice benchmarking were good starting points, but we must consider that real users may behave differently. Therefore, AB testing with real users might have helped us make impactful decisions more quickly.
Feedbacks from colleagues
I'm confident that Claire and her work will succeed. I highly appreciated her actively contributing product strategy from a customer-centric perspective, not limiting herself to UI designs.
- Business Representative
Claire has shown an impressive commitment to leading UTs and finding the best solutions until the very end. Her efforts have significantly contributed to the successful launch of the service, making her a great inspiration for other designers as well.
- Design Lead
Working with Claire was genuinely WOW. Especially in projects like 'Places to Go,' which involved multiple teams, she always took the initiative and remained focused in a fast-paced environment. Her resilience finally led the impactful design outputs.
- Product Manager
Claire not only excels in every detail but also has a holistic perspective on a project, informing rational decision-making with. There is much to learn from her approach as a colleague.
- Product Designer

If you'd like to check out
the detailed process,

you can view it on the

🖥 PC

Or, you can reach out

🙋🏻me↗︎