
Academia Profile Page Redesign
Transform new or under-achieving users in to more of a high-engaging and loyal audience by delivering a familiar and powerful profile page experience.
Length
Role
Deliverables
2 Months
Lead Product Designer
(Team of 2)
Information Architecture, User Flows, Comparative Analysis, High-Fidelity Designs
Tools
Figma, Fullstory, Periscope
Problem
The Academia.edu profile page wasn't meeting the needs of our users. Academia was focused on creating a platform where Academics could network with each other but the profile page wasn't helping to facilitate that. I hypothesized that by designing an eye-catching, feature rich, and outstanding user profile page we could increase user engagement, help to create opportunities for our users to efficiently interact with a specific feature and collect and analyze data useful to our business.
The goal was to help transform new or under-achieving users in to more of a high-engaging and loyal audience by delivering familiar and powerful profile page experience.
Pain
Points
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It was difficult for users to orient themselves
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Important next steps were unclear
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Industry standards were being ignored
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Important actions required digging and discovery wasn't intuitive
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No priority was given towards highlighting key product offerings
Business Goals
Pre-Mortum
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How will we recognize and categorize profile completion?
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What if important components are hard to build?
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How can we promote premium products in a non-invasive way?
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How will we make the page feel like part of a cohesive ecosystem while still allowing personalization?
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What if there are deltas between the new page design and the Academia design system?
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What if we don't achieve our metrics for success, will there be a phase 2 test and what will it look like?
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Promote Premium features within the profile page
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Collect valuable user data through profile engagement
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Facilitate community engagement
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Encourage profile completion
User Experience Goals
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Create a familiar profile page experience
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Better onboard users to Academia.edu platform features and the power of the profile page
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Connect users with their colleagues
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Allow for the promotion of services
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Increase personalization options
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Organize content so it's more digestible
Research and Analysis
I led a user research initiative and thorough landscape analysis to better understand the industry trends and best practices of user profile pages. I looked at competitors in the same space as Academia.edu as well as other tech companies with strong profile pages.
Research included: Linkedin, Twitter, Researchgate, Dribble, Github, Spotify, Yelp, Fiverr, Facebook, Asana and Pinterest
Design Process
Control - The Original Profile Page

New Profile Page Design
We wanted to design a zero-state of the profile for brand new users that helped them immediately understand important first steps to take within the platform.

Zero State
Feature Prioritization & Component Design
I knew that in order to increase engagement we had to help the user complete their profile, promote features and products, and allow them to begin engaging with the community. I decided to include the following key features on the new profile page design:
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Enhance personalization
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Stronger Onboarding
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Analytics Snapshot
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Community member suggestions
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Stronger information architecture
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More opportunities for users to promote themselves.
Final Page Design
Analytics Snapshot
We promoted premium features by giving users a snapshot of their analytics and impact.


Stronger Onboarding
By incorporating a profile builder component we facilitated the completion of important next steps and helped the user build a stronger profile, while also gathering important information for our business.

Enhanced Personalization
We reorganized the section where users can share basic information and added the ability to incorporate a custom profile banner image
Community Suggestions
We helped users immediately begin to engage in networking and feel a stronger sense of community by recommending users to them with similar interests, background or affiliations.


Stronger Information Architecture
I reorganized the content on the profile page to make it more easily navigable and digestible at a glance. Content types were broken in to a tab structure, content cards were redesigned and a right rail to promote related content was incorporated.
Results
The new profile page was largely a success. It resulted in the following wins:
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76% lift in profile completion from existing users
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60% lift in profile completion from new users
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65% lift in Research interests added to profile
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35% lift in upgrades to Premium from the profile (six-figure cash flow increase)
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23% lift in journal and university affiliations added to profile
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15% lift in new connections originating from the profile
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9% lift in works uploaded to the profile
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A resounding 94% of users interviewed said they preferred the new profile page to the old.
Next Steps:
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Add "Services Offered" feature
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Test adding additional Premium upsells
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Add paper claiming component
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Add the ability to see snippets of your news feed within the profile page
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Add the ability to post a status update from your profile page