*As of 6/25
Lead UX Designer/Manager
Ongoing
We weren't successful in finding a clear user need, and suspected there wasn't one. I called the team together for a few days to run a design sprint. We presented our findings and discussed user problems. However, the ask was unchanged.
As the team worked to create a fast prototype, the researcher and I also began to do some ethnographic work. We were concerned that there wasn't a user need we could address.
Within weeks, we began to usability test the prototype. It was clear that we did not have the content to make this a viable feature.
The ethnographic worked uncovered a few user problems, but more importantly, it let us start to map out where we could fit into their current processes. We could see that it was a mistake to bucket our sites together, the needs of someone who restores old mustangs has a very different process than a watch collector or a mountain biker.
I created several different models we could dive into, and we decided to get feedback on them before we spent any engineering effort.
We presented four rough ideas in a survey: The Hub (topic first), The Magazine (image first - this is where we were currently focused), The Journal (process focus), and The Newsletter (thread/post first).
These users gravitated towards the Journal concept. However, we uncovered a need for the hub in the ethnographic work. Even if the users didn't classify it as an issue, it took a great deal of time for them to find spaces where they could get all of their information in one place. Currently, they were bouncing back and forth between different sources to find the specific information they needed to move forward in their purchases.
Product ownership grew out of this work. People wanted a way to keep a journal of the work they were doing and get inspiration from others'. The initial beta of 'My Garage' launched in November of 2024 on 7 automotive communities. So far, 52% of new users have added a product to their garage. There continues to be a 4% MoM increase in this content since. The second round launched in May 2025 with 39 additional sites across different verticals.
I worked with our CTO to create a proof of concept at the end of 2024, creating these pages using LLMs. They became incredibly powerful when trained across overlapping communities (cherokeetalk, jeepcherokeeclub, cherokeesrt8). This was used as the basis of the Topic (Hub) pages that are currently rolling out across our communities. We are seeing the amount of organic traffic double DoD since it's launch and are currently averaging a 17% WoW increase in unique users.
