PINTEREST COLLAGE

Designing a new Pinterest feature to help users define their ideas and elevate their work-flow.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine whose aim is to help users find and collect content to spark inspiration.

MY ROLE

UX Researcher, UX Designer, and UI/Visual Designer. I created goals and parameters for the feature and learned from existing user feedback. I also researched the idea and outlined the solution. Afterward, I tested the mockups and also created consistent components that would work alongside the added feature.

This project was conducted for educational purposes during my academic tenure with DesignLab. I am not affiliated with Pinterest.

THE CHALLENGE

Mood boards help creatives convey their concepts on an emotional level and allow them to remind themselves of the design intent while working on tasks. According to Pinterest Business: 85% of Pinners say Pinterest is where they go to start a new project.

Even though Pinterest is a great tool for organizing and finding ideas, I noticed a trend among users: people are pinning lots of content to their boards but ultimately choose 6-8 images to export onto another platform to create a more refined mood board.  

How might we help users work more efficiently on Pinterest?
‍
See Prototype

DISCOVERY

INITIAL ASSUMPTIONS: COLLABORATION ISSUES ON PINTEREST?

Before starting this project, I observed how creatives utilized Pinterest at my interior design and architecture office. I saw that teams were setting up group boards but not really collaborating on them. It was always predominantly one person pinning content. Not only that, I also saw that every project ran through the same pattern: pin content to boards and then download some of the images and import them to another platform to lay them out for presentations.

My initial theory was that this was happening because of lack of communication between teammates and not being able to communicate efficiently on the platform about which images they ultimately wanted to select. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone at the office is working remotely so team communication has become a top-priority. I thought that this new feature would be geared towards a looser collaboration format on the platform.

I was eager to see whether or not my hypothesis would be validated during research. I made sure to keep an open mind and let the data guide me towards the problem and solution.

Research:

HYPOTHESIS VS. VALIDATION

Before I started my research, I created a research guide to help me define research goals, assumptions, and methodologies. This allowed me to organize my thoughts, identify which methodologies would be most effective for this type of project, and generate a solid direction/timeline for my research.
Find my full research plan here
Secondary Research:

UNDERSTANDING THE MARKET

I wanted to gain a better sense of Pinterest’s target demographic, group board utilization by Pinners, and creative collaboration/project organization.

Here’s what I found:

478 million

monthly active users on Pinterest. Gen Z, Millennials, and Men are driving much of the growth.
*Pinterest, 2021

91%

of Pinners say that Pinterest helps them achieve their goals
*Newsroom.Pinterest

98%

of Group Boards have 5 or less people
*Newsroom.Pinterest

97%

of employees and executives believe lack of alignment within a team impacts the outcome of a task or project
*Bit.AI

IDENTIFYING THE COMPETITION

I also conducted a competitive analysis of Pinterest’s potential competitors to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

Pinterest went public on April 18, 2019. Pinterest’s IPO registration statement included a list of direct competitors. Based on this, I took a closer look at Google, Facebook, and Amazon. I also uncovered online threads regarding users pinning images to Pinterest and then importing them onto platforms such as Miro and Mural to better organize and evaluate their selected imagery.
Products I analyzed for the competitive analysis.
Primary Research:

CONNECTING WITH USERS

After completing my secondary research, it was time to talk to the users. My market research revealed that Pinterest’s target audience are primarily Millennials and Gen Z’ers. It also showed me that even though Men are helping to drive growth, Women are still the majority making up 60% of Pinterest’s user base.

To begin, I arranged in-depth 1:1 interviews with 7 participants between the ages of 18 – 38, who are current Pinterest users. I focused on gathering qualitative data to gain a better understanding of their goals, needs, motivations and frustrations. The goal was to collect enough data to determine user patterns.

See my full interview script here
Research Synthesis:

LETTING THE DATA TALK

Following user interviews, I compiled all of my intel onto virtual sticky-notes. Creating this affinity map allowed me to quickly group commonalities together and better understand behaviour patterns and frustrations within users.

See my full affinity map here

KEY DISCOVERIES

The affinity map opened my eyes to a couple of interesting insights.
Here’s what I learned:
Key Insight 1:

Mood boards help people gain project clarity

100% of participants said that mood boards are imperative at the start of a creative project. Refined mood boards help them visualize the project and communicate ideas.
Need: People need to define ideas before starting a creative project.
Key Insight 2:

People crave an efficient work-flow

100% of participants said that they export 6-8 of their favorite images onto another platform for mood board layouts. 85% said that working across multiple platforms feels overwhelming.
Need: People need to work in a concise manner.
Key Insight 3:

People want to come up with successful design solutions

100% of participants said they collaborate with others often and that good communication is important. 90% don’t use Pinterest for collaboration due to inefficient communication tools.
Need: People need to collaborate efficiently with teammates

DEFINE

Empathy Map
I was able to break my findings down even further by utilizing the patterns I uncovered to create an empathy map. This allowed me to connect to Pinners on an emotional level and kept the design process human-centered.
Persona

SAY HELLO TO LUCY

Once I gained a better understanding of Pinner’s motivations, needs, and frustrations, I applied all of my findings and created the project persona. This persona is used throughout the design process to ensure that I’m designing for the users. Meet Lucy!
Journey Map

ON THE MOVE WITH LUCY

In order to fully understand Lucy’s mindset, it was important to visualize what it would be like to walk in her shoes. I created a journey map by using all of the data gathered during interviews with Pinners. Based on this, it became apparent that images found on Pinterest were being loaded onto several different platforms, creating dips in productivity and adding time to the project.

DEFINING THE PROBLEM

In order to create human-centered design solutions with the collected data, I constructed POV statements using the user insights and needs from the research phase. This allowed me to frame problems from the user's perspective.
In preparation for brainstorming, I developed “how might we?” questions for each of my POV statements. These needed to be broad enough to encompass a wide range of solutions, but narrow enough to set constraints.

With the overarching question on my mind being: How might we make Lucy’s Pinterest experience better? I honed in on three specific questions to initiate brainstorming:

HOW MIGHT WE HELP LUCY...

define ideas before starting a creative project?

work more efficiently?

collaborate with teammates more on Pinterest?

CRAZY8s - THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

After defining the HMW questions, I began brainstorming possible solutions for each by conducting a couple of Crazy8 exercises. The intent for this activity was to generate as many ideas as possible without yet considering technical feasibility.

Crazy8s Reflections

This activity allowed me to quickly explore many different solutions to the HMW questions. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that participants gravitated towards platforms where they could collaborate together in real-time. I thought it would be interesting to create a hybrid between the loose format of digital whiteboards and the organized, structured layout of Pinterest. Something like this would allow users to quickly organize their ideas, collaborate with others, and create a finished, template-based mood board without needing to leave Pinterest.

Story Board

I wanted to think this idea through a little more. I decided to create a story board to visualize how users might interact with a feature like this on Pinterest. I developed a possible scenario and then sketched out my idea.
Scenario:
Lucy is working remotely on a creative project with her team and tries out Pinterest’s new feature.
Strategy:

THE PIVOT

At this point, I realized that I might be getting a bit ahead of myself, I didn’t want to let the bias of my initial assumption drive the solution. I decided to take a step back and look at the product goals on a macro level before pursuing a feature direction.

Realizations

The above Venn-Diagram made a few things clear to me: even though team communication during a group project is extremely important, the user’s primary goals when going on Pinterest are not to collaborate. Users are more focused on finding inspiration, organizing their ideas, and defining project concepts. Furthermore, my secondary research showed that not all Pinners are working on group projects. The majority will go on there to work on an individual idea. That said, all three categories above have one main principle in common:

Partake in an inspiring experience by generating a smooth and efficient work-flow for users.

PRIORITIZING IDEAS

From here, I created a feature roadmap where I prioritized the ideas generated during Crazy8s. The intent was to determine which features are most in-line with the product goals. I planned to focus on features that help elevate user’s work-flow.
Information Architecture:

SITE MAP

In order to seamlessly integrate this new feature, it was important for me to understand the existing structure of the site. I developed a site map to help me visualize the content organization and determine where to introduce the new feature.

UNDERSTANDING INTERACTIONS

After creating the skeleton of the platform, I began thinking about how my persona, Lucy, could interact with each page to complete a certain task. I created a task flow diagram to understand what a user might go through when engaging with the new features.

IDEATE

Lo-Fi Wireframes

Once I analyzed all of my data and defined my solution, it was time to put it all together! I quickly organized a few lo-fi wireframes to make my ideas more concrete. This was an essential part of the process as it allowed me to solidify my concept and visualize the problems.

New Feature: Start Screen

Interaction: Select Desired Image

Interaction: Place Image into Template

Prototype + Test:

BRINGING THE DESIGN TO LIFE

After establishing my lo-fi wireframes, I began plugging in content. I referenced Pinterest’s brand guidelines and studied existing features to ensure that the interactions of the new feature function similarly to the existing ones. I was also very keen on integrating color that would boost participant’s happiness. I selected orange because it is often associated with joy, warmth, enthusiasm, and creativity.
‍
See Prototype

TESTS & REVISIONS

TESTING THE NEW FEATURE

The testing stage is my personal favorite - it’s where you’re able to see the design in action and observe how users approach the given tasks. The goal here is to identify areas for improvements, uncover confusion, and validate/invalidate assumptions. How are users going to interact with the design?

Before conducting usability testing, I outlined my plan and goals for the exercise. Given the current circumstances, I decided to facilitate testing via Zoom calls. I requested all participants to walk me through their thought process as they worked through the tasks I presented them.

I recruited 5 participants who are Gen Zers and Millennials, and current Pinterest users. Participants were able to complete the tasks I put before them with minimal to no issues.

Design Iterations:

LISTEN, OBSERVE, IMPROVE

While participants were running through the tasks, I observed what they were doing via screen share. I was able to collect great intell from each session. I complied these into another affinity map by clustering sticky-notes with common themes together. By forming these groups, patterns began to emerge and I was able to identify key areas for improvement. My main goal was to ensure the design was human-centered.

Key Insight 1:

People were uncertain about the wording

Original:

Changed the feature name to “Collage” and modified the description

Iteration:

Observations:

4/5 participants became flustered and unsure when I asked them to “create a presentation board”. They didn’t realize that “Present” was an interactive feature.

3/5 participants got distracted by the board content and didn’t read the new feature introduction.

Thought-Process:

Since some participants weren’t reading the blue blurb, the feature name needed to be self-explanatory.

3/5 participants mentioned that this activity felt like a “collage” while they were interacting with the feature. This prompted me to adjust the feature name to collage.

Key Insight 2:

People struggled to place images onto the template

Original:

Adjusted the instructions for clarity

Iteration:

Observations:

4/5 participants thought that images were draggable due to the icon circled above.

They also didn’t understand the instructions. Due to this, they struggled with image placement. Eventually, they all realized that they needed to select the field and were able to complete the task.

Thought-Process:

Due to prototype limitations, I wasn’t able to simulate a drag + drop experience. The images will be draggable in a real-life scenario.

With this in mind, I decided to keep this icon in my iteration and address the confusion by adjusting the instructions.

Key Insight 3:

People were surprised by the “download” icon location

Original:

Relocate icon to the top and eliminate the menu

Iteration:

Observations:

When asking participants to download the completed board, 3/5 participants had a hard time finding the icon. They were expecting it to be at the top of the page.

Thought-Process:

In order to make the location apparent, I decided to move the icon to the top and eliminate the menu.

The menu was intended for template size selection. I realized that this function makes more sense under the “page preview” screen after the “download” icon is selected.

DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

After addressing the main pain-points of participants, I took some time to look at the positive feedback. The burning question on my mind: were the design assumptions validated during testing?

Highlight #1:

Template Flexibility

5/5 users liked that they could select different templates to customize their layouts.

“I love being able to change the formatting quickly. Such a time-saver!”

Highlight #2:

Filtering Through Content

4/5 users liked that they could narrow down their board content via filtering by favorites.

“Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the amount of Pins on my board. I like being able to quickly filter through my favorites.”

Highlight #3:

Joy of Interaction

Once participants understood how to place images into the template, 5/5 users enjoyed the process of creating collages through this new feature.

“This is so much fun! I could play around with this for hours.”

REFLECTIONS

This was one of the most challenging and interesting capstones! Not only did I have to make sure that I stayed consistent with Pinterest’s existing brand style but I also got to play with its established visual elements. This project taught me more about the process of seamless integration. I learned that while products like Pinterest can always be improved, it is important to recycle design patterns so that users don’t need to spend time learning new interactions while gaining benefits of the new feature.

If I were to do this project again, I would want to lead a group brainstorming session to generate more ideas. Unfortunately, due to current circumstances, I had a difficult time arranging this for this capstone. I think group activities on creative projects are extremely important. Everyone approaches problems differently - you can never have too many ideas!

NEXT STEPS

Now that I’ve had a chance to pick up my priority revisions, I would want to test this feature again to ensure that the design is intuitive and user-friendly. I would also want to connect with an engineer to gain a better understanding of constraints and make adjustments accordingly.

It would also be really exciting to run this idea by someone currently working at Pinterest and get their feedback!
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"I believe in the balance between dreaming and building."
- Neri Oxman

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