VOLUME FLYERS
Role
Product Manager
Product Manager
Team
1 Product Manager
2 Marketers
5 Developers
1 Designer
1 Product Manager
2 Marketers
5 Developers
1 Designer
Tools
Figma
Notion
Slack
Figma
Notion
Slack
Timeline
Dec 2022 - May 2023
Dec 2022 - May 2023
Summary
Initiatives resulted in 300% increase in MAU from previous semesters. Received the EY Corporate Award for Cornell's annual technology showcase, BOOM. Led the team to design, develop, and market a new feature from scratch as well as restructuring the architecture of the app. Had fun.
CONTEXT
What is Volume?
Before Volume existed, there were a few problems in the Cornell publications/reader community.
Students want to read student publications to stay updated with the community, but they can't because they don’t want to go out of their way to find content, and it is difficult for them to keep track of multiple publications across platforms.
On the other hand, student publications want to engage with a wider audience to share their content, but they can't because they have limited marketing power, and their contents are scattered across multiple platforms such as printed and online.
Students want to read student publications to stay updated with the community, but they can't because they don’t want to go out of their way to find content, and it is difficult for them to keep track of multiple publications across platforms.
On the other hand, student publications want to engage with a wider audience to share their content, but they can't because they have limited marketing power, and their contents are scattered across multiple platforms such as printed and online.
Collective X's Fall 2021 Release
To solve this problem, Volume was created with a mission to better connect student publications with students by making it easy and accessible to digest student-created content. Volume believes in the unique power that lies in the sharing and distribution of content by students and for students to spark conversation, experiences, and connections that improve the collegiate experience. To achieve this mission, Volume was founded as an app that -
Centralizes student created content to make it more accessible to students.
This semester, I was selected to be the product manager of Volume, leading a cross-functional team of 8. At the same time, I was the lead designer mentoring Amy, a new designer on the team.
PRODUCT PROBLEM
Volume has always struggled with its user base
Since launch, Volume has struggled to grow and retain its users. The team often felt less motivated to ship new features because they felt that there was less chance for high impact. Eatery, our dining hall app, has 10k monthly active users at its peak. Ithaca Transit, our bus routes app, has 8k monthly active users at its peak. CourseGrab, our class enrollment app, has 3k monthly active users at its peak. For Volume, we only have 150 monthly active users at our peak in the past few semesters.
A picture Volume's SP23 tabling event featuring our marketing member Sanjana.
Solution Space 1
Publisher analytics
Gather analytics & metrics for publication's content will provide value to publications, hence increase partnerships. By increasing partnerships, we will have more content on the platform, meaning we will provide more value to our users. Hence, more user base.
Solution Space 2
Student flyers
Currently, Volume only display student articles & magazines. This feature will allow student organizations to upload flyers on top of publications, opening up a new space for Volume to grow as well as a whole lot of potential users.
Final Solution
Student flyers
While the first solution remains within the original space of Volume, I believed that from a product standpoint, Volume could really benefit from the shift in the mission statement. For the past few semesters, Volume has always struggled with user retention, so we have nothing to lose by being bold and broadening our focus.
Including student flyers on top of student publications makes Volume truly a student news platform. Not only will students be able to read the latest Cornell news and publications, but they will also know what is going on around campus. By this logic, this feature aligns Volume with its core mission to better connect student publications & organizations with students by making it easy and accessible to digest student-created content.
PROBLEM AND RESEARCH
Event discovery sucks for students.
A picture full of flyers from student organizations, stacked on each other
For example, take a look at this bullet-in board found in one of the academic buildings.
This is not an example of an effective way for students to know what is going on around campus. However, this is an opportunity for Volume. Instead of having a physical board for organizations to share their event, why not have a platform that does it without clutter and can be accessed anywhere, anytime?
To test my hypothesis, my mentee designer and I wrote up a UX research protocol. We then each interviewed students to better understand if this is a genuine pain point for the Cornell community.
To avoid asking leading questions, our interview protocol was designed to backtrack a student's experience instead of asking them to describe a hypothetical scenario.
To test my hypothesis, my mentee designer and I wrote up a UX research protocol. We then each interviewed students to better understand if this is a genuine pain point for the Cornell community.
To avoid asking leading questions, our interview protocol was designed to backtrack a student's experience instead of asking them to describe a hypothetical scenario.
Insights
There are many outside factors that affect a student's decision to go to an event.
For example, if their friend are going or whether or not they have a conflict during the time.
Question
"What kind of information do you need about an event to make a decision about whether or not to attend?"
Responses
“If I know that there are other people going that I can go with then I'll go but if I'm like going by myself like I would have to be super interested in it to like not have to or like to go.”
“If I have any conflicting or time conflicts during that time, and then I would like kind of see like, if my friends are also going.”
“If I have any conflicting or time conflicts during that time, and then I would like kind of see like, if my friends are also going.”
Insights
Word of mouth is the primary way students receive news information.
Students receive news about events mostly from word of mouth & decide whether they want to go or not based on whether or not their friends are going.
Question
"Tell me about the last time you went to a Cornell-affiliated event. How did you find out?"
Response
“My friends will just send the links in the groupchat with all my other friends”
“So, I heard about the hockey game originally through my friends.”
“So, I heard about the hockey game originally through my friends.”
We learned that word of mouth is one of the primary ways students learn about events and one of the primary reasons why they decide to go to events, so the important question now is whether or not students genuinely want to go to these events for their own enjoyment, or they go only for social reasons (their friends are going).
To follow up with our insights, we revised our interview protocol to to ask the question of whether or not students go to on-campus events for their own enjoyment. Instead of asking them about events, we ask them about news.
To follow up with our insights, we revised our interview protocol to to ask the question of whether or not students go to on-campus events for their own enjoyment. Instead of asking them about events, we ask them about news.
Insights
Although word of mouth is how events spread, students often find interesting events on their own.
Through Instagram, students click on some events that they are interested in and sign up even without friends telling them to.
Question
“What is your main source of news relating to Cornell student life?”
Response
“I would usually just browse through my Instagram and find these events.”
Down the rabbit hole, this led to more questions. If a student uses Instagram to learn about events, they must have followed the organization page in order to see their upcoming events. So now, the question is whether or not students only go to events from organizations that they are familiar with.
To investigate this problem, I interviewed more students to see that this isn't necessarily the case.
To investigate this problem, I interviewed more students to see that this isn't necessarily the case.
Insights
Students go to events from unfamiliar student organizations.
From our research, we know that students go to events that they found online through email listservs, which frequently contains events from organizations that students are not familiar with.
Response
“Email. It is convenient. I browse through email anyways.”
“I am not really looking for anything until I see something interesting.”
“I am not really looking for anything until I see something interesting.”
The emails in question contain events that are not specifically catered to the students unlike an Instagram feed. However, from research, we know many students still decide to go to these events despite they are not from an organization that they follow.
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
Event discovery sucks for clubs.
Campus Groups makes students disoriented.
For context, Cornell University has an official page for all events called Campus Groups, but most students and organizations don’t use it. I knew it existed, but I didn’t remember it until my interviewees spoke about it. Thus, I set out to analyze our potential competitor, Campus Groups.
This was a very important question for me to investigate because if Campus Groups failed because there is no demand for it, then I should not invest in development in this feature space at all. We would waste a semester creating a feature that no one uses.
If the campus groups failed because of other reasons, then we could capitalize on that fact and create a better version that people will actually use.
The important question is why.
This was a very important question for me to investigate because if Campus Groups failed because there is no demand for it, then I should not invest in development in this feature space at all. We would waste a semester creating a feature that no one uses.
If the campus groups failed because of other reasons, then we could capitalize on that fact and create a better version that people will actually use.
The important question is why.
Screenshot of Campus Groups for Cornell University
To answer this question, we seek out a second round of research to dig at Campus Groups and why it did not work. Below are some of the qualitative data we collected from our interviews.
Responses
“It’s just like, kind of annoying.”
“I feel like when I'm looking at events, I usually do it through my phone and not through my desktop.”
“Like, I guess like, it's like difficult to like, find things that you're actually interested in.”
“I feel like when I'm looking at events, I usually do it through my phone and not through my desktop.”
“Like, I guess like, it's like difficult to like, find things that you're actually interested in.”
From our qualitative questions, we learned that students feel too disoriented using Campus Groups,
First, there are way too many events displayed on the home page, including events that are not relevant to most of the student body such as weekly club meetings, office hours, and even private events that are not open to the general student body.
The goal of campus groups is to document every single thing happening at any time. Although this is a good way to keep track and regulate events from the university's perspective, too many options in clubs and organizations could cause choice paralysis for users.
After analyzing why Campus Groups failed as a way for students to discover events, I decided that Volume could greatly benefit from introducing a similar, but better feature.
First, there are way too many events displayed on the home page, including events that are not relevant to most of the student body such as weekly club meetings, office hours, and even private events that are not open to the general student body.
The goal of campus groups is to document every single thing happening at any time. Although this is a good way to keep track and regulate events from the university's perspective, too many options in clubs and organizations could cause choice paralysis for users.
After analyzing why Campus Groups failed as a way for students to discover events, I decided that Volume could greatly benefit from introducing a similar, but better feature.
Foundations
Restructuring the app
Information Architecture
The biggest and hardest question is how to integrate this new feature into Volume's current state. Volume has always been a student publication platform, featuring articles and magazines. Solving this problem required major restructuring of the app. This included changing entry points for existing features as well as adding new entry points to accommodate for flyers.
Above is the original Volume Information Architecture
Our first step is to integrate flyers and making it fit with the existing features, I considered common features that could house our old publications feature and the new flyers feature. First page and Bookmarks immediately came to mind as the features that is very easy to include flyers in, as there is a trending “Reads” for articles and magazines, why not have a trending for flyers. Bookmarks contain bookmarked articles and magazines, so it made sense to add flyers there.
Our second step required a bigger modification in our IA. Since magazines, articles, and publications are all related to student publications, we consolidated them together into one page to leave room for this big feature, then I created a special new page to house all the flyers, this new flyers page will contain all the essential flyer features we want.
Our third step is some finishing touches of changing names and moving smaller relevant features into the right places.
Our interactions go beyond the app to adhere to our priorities, which is to increase club partnerships as well as expand user base.
To provide more value to our club partners, we direct our flyers directly to their original website for event sign up. It is also an UX improvement for our users because now they can discover and sign up all in one swift interaction.
On the other hand, our users have the opportunity to share flyers, articles, and magazines through deep-linking with any of their favorite messaging platforms such as iMessage, Instagram, or Snapchat.
To provide more value to our club partners, we direct our flyers directly to their original website for event sign up. It is also an UX improvement for our users because now they can discover and sign up all in one swift interaction.
On the other hand, our users have the opportunity to share flyers, articles, and magazines through deep-linking with any of their favorite messaging platforms such as iMessage, Instagram, or Snapchat.
Experience Beyond The Screens
Notifications for Flyers
From our user interview, we learned that many students receive their news from the Cornell email listserv. A solution feature to that for Volume is notifications. Here are some examples of the content design I pushed to the app to get our users attention.
BRING IT TOGETHER
Final Results and Metrics
Shipped Designs
Original home screen on the left, new home screen on the middle and on the right.
The new flyers page on the left, and the new reads page on the middle and the right.
Club page as well as admin-side page for uploading, modifying, and deleting flyers.
Marketing initiatives
As a product manager, I plan out marketing initiatives with my marketing members to support the work that the designers & developers are doing.
One of our marketer baked Volume cookies to encourage new students to learn more about Volume.
Distributing flyers across campus for reach (I put one in the bathroom stalls so people can see when they use the bathroom lol :P)
Massive increase in user base and retention
300% increase in user base from prior semesters as well as improved retention.
Volume's User Base in SP23 semester from January 2023 to May 2023
Volume's spike in user and retention in SP23 semester compared to past semesters
The SP23 Team after winning an award from the annual Cornell Technology Showcase, Bits On Our Minds.
NEXT STEPS
User Testing
Although we done a lot of user research and app restructuring, Volume still need iterative user testing to make sure that we are providing the best experience for our users. This will be done in the Fall 2023 semester.
Categories
To further unify publications and organizations, cross categorization be the key, The next feature would be to create category tags for publications and organizations, so when a student is interested in one niche category, they will be able to see explore both flyers and papers about the category.
UI Redesign to Accomodate Articles with No Images
Currently, we have a template image for all publications that posts articles without a cover thumbnail. However, there could be better ways to attract the reader's attention without it.