Redbubble • 7 min read

Creator Tools

Passion project aimed at increasing user-generated content (UGC) on Redbubble, an e-commerce platform for independent artists

ROLE

Product Designer

TIMELINE

Dec 2022 (3 weeks)

TEAM

Solo

DELIVERABLES

User interviews

Competitive analysis

User flows

Mobile UI components

Mobile components

Hi-fi design concepts

Usability testing

✨ HIGHLIGHTS

  • Practiced the end-to-end design process and product thinking in areas of interest: e-commerce and creator tools

  • Redbubble noticed my work and invited me to speak with a PM on their Artist Experience Team

  • I found out many of my solutions were on the team's backlog, which was quite validating

FINAL SOLUTION

Mobile-friendly web design

I want to have user-friendly interface on mobile, so that I can create content more conveniently

Multi-product editor

I want to make edits across my portfolio, so that I can keep my shop refreshed

Example: enable all pins

Example: enable all pins

Advanced business analytics

I want to track key performance metrics, so that I can optimize my shop strategy

Recent activity

Recent activity

Earnings by product type

Earnings by product type

BACKGROUND

What is Redbubble?

Redbubble is an online marketplace that allows independent artists to sell their designs on a wide range of products such as t-shirts, stickers, and more. It provides a platform for artists to upload their artwork, which can then be printed on-demand on various items.

A sneak peak of my shop @littlemandyart

Problem space

The process of creating a new piece—uploading artwork, adding descriptions, and customizing up to 50 products—can be quite tedious. After five years on the beloved platform, I noticed a lack of effort from Redbubble to automate the creation process for artists. This inspired me to explore solutions from both user and business perspectives in this passion project.

Avg. time to add a new work: 15 min

Source: user interviews with 5 Redbubble artists

The goal

Propose a new user experience that includes…

  • An seamless end-to-end content creation flow

  • New feature explorations for experienced artists

DISCOVERY

Business need: user-generated content (UGC)

I began by reviewing Redbubble's 2022 Annual Report to understand their company strategy. One key insight was that artists generate user-generated content (UGC), fueling a cycle that benefits all key stakeholders. With this in mind, I established UGC output as the primary success metric for this project.

The RB Group Flywheel

USER INTERVIEWS

Hearing the Redbubble community

Next, I sought to understand the goals and pain points of artists, themselves. I invited 5 Redbubble artists (ranging from having 3 to 7000+ followers) to task-based interviews with the following format:

  • Pre-task Qs — Goals with Redbubble, current workflow, frustrations…

  • Task 1 — Upload and publish a new work, enabling Kids Clothes only

  • Task 2 — Enable pins for all existing works

  • Post-task Qs — Overall experience, challenges, suggested improvements…

Instagram recruitment and chatting with @AndrewAPicture!

Key takeaways

💡 LEARNING

Qualitative coding, a process that helped me categorize my qualitative data in order to find themes and patterns

😮 UNEXPECTED FINDING

Discoverability issues—I'm quite familiar with Redbubble; however, many newer artists weren't aware of useful tools

Redbubble artists expressed frustration with hidden features and the lack of a mobile option for creators. I've included more pain points below.

Redbubble artists expressed frustration with hidden features and the lack of a mobile option for creators. I've included more pain points below.

Redbubble artists expressed frustration with hidden features and the lack of a mobile option for creators. I've included more pain points below.

"I didn't know about Copy Settings. I could have saved so much time!"

@AndrewAPicture

"I downloaded the Redbubble app, but I was only able to shop."

@Terlet Design

(2/5) Low discoverability of tools

(3/5) Lack of mobile creator tools

(5/5) Time-consuming creation

(3/5) Difficulty writing keywords

(2/5) Giving up due to low sales

💡 LEARNING

Qualitative coding, a process that helped me categorize my qualitative data in order to find themes and patterns

😮 UNEXPECTED FINDING

Discoverability issues—I'm quite familiar with Redbubble; however, many newer artists weren't aware of useful tools

💡 LEARNING

Qualitative coding, a process that helped me categorize my qualitative data in order to find themes and patterns

😮 UNEXPECTED FINDING

Discoverability issues—I'm quite familiar with Redbubble; however, many newer artists weren't aware of useful tools

USER TYPES

Beginner and experienced artists

The user interviews also helped me narrow down target users; I defined experienced and beginner artist profiles based on their distinct needs.

Experienced artist

Is experiencing success on Redbubble, as measured by likes and revenue

→ Core needs: motivation to keep growing their shop—ideally, efficiently

→ Business motivation: user retention, high-quality content

Beginner artist

Still learning how to use Redbubble; makes $50 or less in monthly revenue

→ Core needs: intuitive onboarding, early shop performance indicators

→ Business motivation: user acquisition, diverse content

COMPETITOR SPACE

Analyzing industry trends and technologies

With 34 million monthly visitors, Redbubble was a leader in the print-on-demand (POD) industry. However, it's common for artists to sell on more than one POD site at a time for their needs—in fact, this was the case for 3/5 of my interviewees. I compiled a list of top POD companies:

Rank

Name

Mo. Visitors

1

Merch by Amazon

2.5B

2

Redbubble

34M

3

Zazzle

30M

4

Teepublic

10M

5

Society6

5M

How could Redbubble stay competitive? I tested other similar platforms to see what features they offered creators, finding several opportunities:

Multi-product editor

SOCIETY6, AMAZON

Mobile shop manager

ETSY SELLER APP

Daily engagement stats

INSTAGRAM

How might Redbubble…

Optimize current creation workflows so that artists can seamlessly and rapidly produce UGC for the platform?

While also providing advanced shop tools to retain top artists in a competitive print-on-demand landscape?

Decision to design for mobile-web

On top of those goals, I wanted to pioneer mobile-web designs for Redbubble. This was my rationale:

  • 3/5 interviewees had attempted to add work on mobile at some point

  • Etsy found the need to spend resources into building the Etsy Seller App

  • The current non-responsive UX reflected poorly on Redbubble's brand image

USER FLOW

Before: redundant creator workflows

Before designing, I mapped out the end-to-end user flow for creating a work. This revealed that if an artist wanted to edit an existing work, they had to go through the entire creation flow as if they were starting from scratch.

After: separate workflow for editing existing work

That prompted me to create a separate, simplified user journey for editing an existing work. The artist is able to edit products for a given design from one page and complete the process in fewer clicks.

MID-FIDELITY DESIGNS

Conceptualizing the flow

In the new 'Products' tab, artists can edit their works and availability for products, such as Pins, to ensure consistency in the items they offer.

USABILITY TESTING

Testing with a new group of artists

As soon as a I had a minimum viable product (MVP), I launched a usability test with a new group of 5 Redbubble artists. The goal was to assess the ease of completing the original two tasks with the redesigned prototypes.

Task 1 — Add new work

Task 2 — Edit existing work

Results:

40% decrease in task interruption rate for adding new work

Reduced no. of clicks by 5 for editing an existing work, per product

4/5 participants did not initially find the 'Products' tab

3/5 participants made misclicks

Action:

Given the 3-week time constraint of this project, I decided to focus on addressing the misclicks problem by iterating on the mobile interface.

DESIGN ITERATION

Incorporating mobile best practices

You could say that my first attempt was a fail; I merely copied the design patterns from desktop web. This time around, I studied the Apple Human Interface Guidelines and modern mobile web applications. This helped me design familiar components with larger target sizes.

DESIGN SYSTEM

Mobile-web design system

💡 LEARNING

Ensuring proper use of a company's design system. Also, contributing new design patterns as use cases arise

I developed a mobile-web design system based on Redbubble's open-source design system to create reusable styles and components for my prototypes.

💡 LEARNING

Ensuring proper use of a company's design system. Also, contributing new design patterns as use cases arise

💡 LEARNING

Ensuring proper use of a company's design system. Also, contributing new design patterns as use cases arise

So, what did I solve?

For concision, I didn't cover all my design explorations or process work. Feel free to revisit my Final Solution to see the end result again. Take me back up

  • Optimized the workflow for editing existing works

  • Provided fresh ideas for advanced creator tools, including business analytics

IMPACT

Share-out with a Redbubble PM

I shared my project with my Artist Relationship Manager, Jen. To my pleasant surprise, she invited me to speak with a Product Manager on the Artist Experience team. I was excited to meet her, gain feedback on my ideas, and learn about the potential engineering lift of my solutions.

REFLECTION

That's a wrap! P.S. this is my proudest project

JUST FOR FUN

Check out my Redbubble shop

If I had more time

Resolve pain points in the 'Products' tab

The usability test revealed that this new feature was easily overlooked. I'd want to go through more design iterations and eventually another usability test to increase discoverability.

What I would've done differently

Do less

I tried to do so much at once! I wish I had set a more focused direction for this project, also to be able to measure the impact of my work more directly.

Learning

Product thinking

Throughout the project, I kept Redbubble's larger goal of increasing UGC in mind. Each design decision could be tied back to that goal and other data.

JUST FOR FUN

Check out my Redbubble shop

JUST FOR FUN

Check out my Redbubble shop