Class
SI 429:
Online Communities
with Professor Eric Gilbert
(Group project)
Tools
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Microsoft Powerpoint
SKILLS
Group Collaboration
Leadership
User Research
UI Design
Duration
Fall 2018
Assignment
In this class we were tasked with doing a deep dive into an online community. Within this community, our goal was to critically analyze how specific elements of the architecture of the website or app the community was based in caused issues within the community. We could then chose to redesign aspects of the site to attempt to resolve some of those issues.
Research
For our community, we chose the Beauty Insider forum on Sephora’s website. We found this community interesting, as it was a social network created by a brick and mortar store chain. Many tech companies have their own forums, but Sephora’s forum is not for tech support. Instead of creating a place you come to ask for help whenever your product breaks, Sephora attempted to create a site for users to discuss the best way that they could use their products, and recommend products to each other. This site has fantastic marketing potential for Sephora, as users can utilize the site’s functionality to direct their fellow users to products all over the site.
The main issue we found with the site’s community was the lack of users. Upon closely examining the site’s infrastructure, it began to become clear why the forum could scare some users away. To begin with, entering any forum on the site could be a confusing and bewildering experience. If users weren’t well acquainted with makeup and skincare, they might have trouble deciphering what users were talking about. In other forums, such as Reddit’s /r/skincareaddiction and /r/makeupaddiction, users can learn a lot by reading basic information that the moderators had accumulated relating to the topic.
We also found that all of the information in the post box on a forum page was padded out with a lot of unnecessary white space, which inhibited readability and the speed of browsing.
Redesign Recommendations
We ultimately recommended a few design changes with the goal of improving user participation and investment. One of our main design changes was to create the role of forum moderator, which would allow users to take up the mantle of forum section expert. Forum moderators would be allowed to ‘pin’ posts to the top of the page of their forum, making it far easier for new users to get acquainted with the topic the forum was based around. We also created features that encouraged users to flesh out their profile and post more on the site to receive some in store bonuses. These changes, we felt, would improve user particion, which would in turn make users more likely to shop for Sephora products online.
