introducing
Storyblocks' Contributor Dashboard
A new way for Storyblocks Contributors to manage their profiles, view monthly earnings, and gain insight to their top performing content.
Release Date: September 2019
My role
I was the lead designer for executing the Member Library Partner Program & Marketplace which then led me to design the very first contributor dashboard for Storyblocks. I intentionally designed the dashboard to help highlight the most relevant information to contributors while meeting business needs.
I worked closely in partnership with my squad which included a PM, UX Researcher, Content Acquisition Manager, Engineer, and Data Scientist.
Why a Contributor dashboard?
In a nutshell...
The Member Library Partner Program was introduced in July 2019.
The company decided to shift gears a few months earlier and decided to remove the ability for customers to pay per clips a la carte in the Marketplace. Meaning, Storyblocks members would pay for a subscription to be able to access unlimited content (Netflix style) depending on their plan without having to pay additionally for video clips. Which alarmed several Storyblocks contributors when they were informed of the new program due to how their pay would be affected in the long run.
As a follow up after the launch of the program, we decided to follow-up and introduce the Member Library Earnings pool as a way to communicate with contributors how much they were earning monthly and how their content was performing overall. The Member Library pool was divided amongst all contributors who participate in the program based on how much of their content is downloaded.
With great releases, comes great responsibilities
It was crucial for the team to gain trust and momentum from contributors with such a drastic change. Implementing the new earnings program (The Member Library Pool) quickly gave us insight to what contributors were concerned about... you guessed it... their earnings.
“The Member Library Partner Program puts us in the unique position to provide diverse, high-quality stock media that the mass creative class demands while providing an earnings boost for our contributor community, and allowing them to better share in our success over the long run,” – Storyblocks CEO TJ Leonard
To learn more about the Member Library Partner Program please visit https://contribute.storyblocks.com/about
Our PROCESS
How we fostered trust & transparency...
Rooted in understanding contributors needs, we tried to
come up with the best way to deliver that data while meeting
business goals and needs.
We worked in a squad model, validated assumptions with real contributors, in order to learn and deliver and iterate as quickly as possible.
We held a whiteboarding session, user testing and usability testing, rapid prototyping and were relentless about focusing on contributor needs.
LEARNING PAIN POINTS
Interviewing power users/contributors
Primary users were Storyblocks contributors who uploaded content to earn money from the Storyblocks Member Partner Program. We conducted surveys, a card sorting exercise, and user interviews as frameworks to get us the answers we needed.
Common comments/questions we came across when we interviewed contributors:
1. I want to know how my content is performing. How many times is my clip being downloaded?
2. What should I shoot next that can increase my downloads (supply/demand)?
3. Should I invest time in capturing X? Is that type of content popular? If so what type of content?
Overall, Storyblocks' stock media contributors wanted to see the optimal areas of ROI (return of investments) within the content they were providing and what type of content for stock that was in demand. They wanted to know what external areas they could contribute towards and what gaps they could fill within the Storyblocks stock media program.
THE OPPORTUNITY
To be transparent with contributors
The primary goal for the dashboard was to increase contributor satisfaction and retention. If we wanted to increase those rates we were going to need to be transparent and answer their questions.
We also discovered an opportunity for us to offer incentives to contributors for the stock media content we needed in our library. It was a win, win situation.
THe Perks
Providing daily, monthly and annual content performance data to contributors would drive good content production and would be a key retention tool.
The Challenges
Coming up with visuals that met all types of earnings. Often times contributors didn't earn a lot so it was difficult to visually show their earnings with graphs.
The execution
After doing the first round of user interviews, whiteboarding session, and design feedback iterations on the prototypes, we decided to reach out to contributors again to gain first impressions of the dashboard we had designed for them. From there we gathered their reactions and comments.
The results
Trust is earned, and contributors want to participate more
Contributors said they felt heard in the process. They were shocked to see all the feedback they provided implemented in the final designs. They felt like they were making a difference in the future of their earnings. Some contributors even offered to continue interviewing with us as we continued to evolve the dashboard.
A few comments from contributors below.
"The graph shows more transparency and it makes me feel more proactive about what's happening with my earnings and the pool"
"It's always good to see how good you're doing"
"This dashboard let's me know what content I am filming right and what I should shoot more of"
next steps
Making the dashboard for audio contributors
Prior to designing the dashboard strictly for video content, I made sure to consider a future state for audio and image contributors. This made it easier for the next team to implement any changes they wanted to make without changing too much of the UI or interactions.
