Redesign Timer Experiences

Overview

Designed visual solutions in the iterative product development process to introduce Switcher Timer and increase the conversion rate.

Duration

Aug. 2016 - Sep. 2016
Feb. 2017 - Mar. 2017

Switcher is a smart light controller targeting a single or a married couple household in South Korea. The target user is aged 25 to 35 years old, living in a studio or one-bedroom apartment.

What is Switcher Timer?

Switcher Timer turns on and off the light automatically, even without constant Bluetooth pairing. A user can save a timer on the device by connecting Switcher app and a hardware controller via Bluetooth.

Switcher Timer and the conversion rate

As a hardware product, Switcher had a unique business model in 2017. A potential customer could apply for a 30-days free trial from the Switcher website. After the trial, he or she can pay for one of four subscription plans. We set the percentage of users who subscribed after the free-trial as the conversion rate.

Only 35.3% of free-trial users used the feature, but 67.5% of subscribed users used Switcher Timer.
Users using Switcher Timer selected the longest and the most expansive subscription plan.

Belief

Users who have used Switcher Timer find the value and have high possibilities to convert.

Based on our hypothesis, the product team ran two weeks duration sprint twices. My role was to discover user problems around Switcher Timer and synthesize solutions.

Sprint 1

User Problems

During the interview, we found out that many users didn't know about the feature at all until we asked them why they didn't use it.
Not enough trust in the new connected device. They were worried if Timer didn't work while they cannot be physically next to the device.

Dicover Opportunities

What if users can learn about Switcher Timer and its value inside mobile applications?
What if users can test Switcher Timer and gain trust in it during the onboarding process?

Design Solution

⭐️Users can learn about Switcher Timer and test it in onboarding process by following three popups in sequence.

Result

After two weeks, we reviewed GA to track the performance of the design. And we found out that there was 64% drop-off rate in the 1st popup, 79% in the 2nd popup, and 62% in the last pop up.

We all agreed that designing and developing the popup guide cost less but not an intuitive way to introduce important information. Users perceived it as more intrusive, so we moved on to find a better solution.

Before starting the second sprint, we ran a survey to users on free trials. First, we asked how many timers they used. Then, we asked if they are willing to pay for subscriptions after the free trial. Surprisingly, the free-to-paid conversion rate was 1.5 times higher if a user set more than three timers than users set no timers at all.

Revised Belief

Users who have used more than two Switcher Timers find the value and have high possibilities to convert.

Since we found out that the number of timers affects the conversion rate, I focused more on "why users don't use more than two timers."

User problems

Users cannot think of more than one Timer use cases.
Users have to take more than 5 steps to create only one Timer.

Research

I ran another qualitative research with the marketer. The goal was to observe how the converted users use Switcher Timer and to discover key use cases for our target users.

Solution

Suggest multiple key usecases to help users to setup more than two timers.
Help users to set multiple timers at once

In the early design process, I used ProtoPie to iterate and validate interactions quickly. It was the first experiment to design an interactive design with long text sentences. By running internal user testings, we gained confidence in the features and value as we iterated.

Impact

After running two 2-weeks sprints, we could validate our hypothesis: Switcher Timer affected the conversion rate indeed.

Before Running Sprints

47% of entire users used Swither Timer.
79% of free-trial users converted.
63% of paid users on a long-term subscription plan(more than one year).

After Running Sprints

78% of entire users used Swither Timer.
86% of free-trial users converted.
71% of paid users on a long-term subscription plan(more than one year).