Inspo Library

creative meets tech

Vidsy works with renowned brands like Pepsi, L'Oréal, and Google to create high-performing video ads through our creative technology platform. We deliver ads to clients by conceptualizing and shaping a brief which we then send to our network of creators who can apply to a project and create a video which we then tidy up and ship to the client.

Sharing inspiration creates alignment, clarity, and vision

Finding internal and external inspo is a key part of the creative delivery process. It provides client trust & alignment, creator clarity, and helps increase the quality of our creative outputs.

The existing solution was a rough proof of concept which demonstrated value, but came with significant drawbacks.

As the sole designer on the AI Squad, my goal was to identify what these issues were and how we could solve them, preferably with the help of some AI magic ✨

How might we....

leverage AI in the inspiration process to improve quality and increase project throughput?

2024 PROJECT AND CONCEPT PROJECTIONS

In order to get the library prioritized, I worked with the creative team to better understand the cost of an inefficient inspo libray, and the potential value of optimizing it.

Inspiration makes up:

~25% of Creative Concepts & Brief Writing

→ Monthly Time Cost on Inspo:

~150 hours, equivalent to 1 full- time Creative Lead

1 full-time CL contributes

~£833,000 in value

30% reduction in inspo time:

→ capacity for ~£249,900 additional value

Research methods

Qualitative

Interviews

Observational/Shadowing sessions

Survey - understand where people currently went for inspo

Competitor Analysis + Secondary Research - SWOT analysis of direct and indirect competitors

Workshop - identify how should library be curated

Quantitative

Google analytics - set up for the previous library, enabled me to identify and quantify patterns in how it was currently being used (e.g. popular search terms, most used filters, etc)

Slack channel - Creative leads would use this to ask each other for inspiration. By compiling and categorizing these asks, I was able to categorize and rank different search dimensions, e.g. visual motifs, edit styles, characters etc

Tools

Built an Airtable base to more easily store data

Used to identify insights, trends, and potential solutions

Chatgpt for content analysis

Built an insight generator in Chatgpt for cleaning up and categorizing interview notes

SWOT Analysis

INSIGHT

“I love [the current library], but it can be a pain to use”

- Creative Lead

what's working / what's not

Pros of Old Library

💪 Library is categorized by our frameworks

✨ Self service, explore different categories

💗 Not limited to your own videos

⚡ Browse lots of content quickly

Cons of Old Library

⏳ Slow and effortful curation process

✨ No way to assess quality

⌚ Slow loading & log in issues

😤 Tags and details are incomplete

🔍 Search is clunky and lacks functionality

strength

“It’s amazing that it shows our structures and frameworks”

weakness

“I see the same videos over and over”

weakness

“I wish it was easier to add videos to the library”

Inspo consumers seek diversity and relevance in content

Through my interviews, I summarized what wuld be most important for the end consumers of the curated inspiration.

Creators

I’m a content creator who wants to make great videos that match the brief

Success metrics

Matches the brief + demonstrates creative
flair ✨

Pain Points

Seeing example inspo that doesn’t match brief goals

Not getting enough inspiration

Seeing overly polished inspo (e.g. from a movie or high production music video)

Needs

Internal and External Content

Clarity and Direction

Content Diversity; ensures that creators don't create content in a single style or approach

Relevant and Contextual inspo

Client

I’m a marketer who’s looking for clarity, transparency, and quality deliverables

Success metrics

High quality videos with a fast turnaround

Pain Points

Seeing content that Vidsy can’t reproduce (e.g. movies, music videos)

Needing to clarify gaps in alignment on
creative strategy

Competitor videos that are too similar to
what Vidsy is offering me

Needs

Vision Creation & Alignment: does it align with brand identity and campaign goals?

Minimizing Touchpoints: minimize needs for additional meetings / emails

Contextual Relevance: aesthetically pleasing + contextually relevant to industry, target audience, and marketing objectives

Vidsy Creative Lead / Strategist

I need inspo to help shape the campaign, create concepts, and to write the brief

Success metrics

Create impactful strategy and briefs that build trust with the client by creating a shared vision

Pain Points

Inspo tool is outdated and incomplete

Internal app is not searchable

Adding new videos is a chore

Needs

Searchable pool of internal and external videos

Personal boards and storage mechanisms

Easy way to categorize videos

APPLYING INSIGHTS

The research phase generated a series of questions to answer, such as "how would we curate the library" so that it was both comprehensive, yet not filled with noise. I started ideating on the feedback, and regularly tested my designs with creative leads and strategists.

I also checked in with the development team to show my progress/identify any potential concerns. When the designs were in a more final state, I did a prioritization exercise with the cofounder, creative team leads, and developers.

To prep for prioritization, I started mocking up some ideas to minimize friction, encourage exploration, and identifying relevant content.

Ideation

Trending elements to inform users and encourage exploration

Adding a trends section could aid in discovery of new ideas for frameworks, visual effects, etc. Nearly all users mentioned appreciating sites like eyecandy, which not only showed content, but also helped find related videos within that category.

Search Generator for hassle-free and relevant results

We could repurpose a brief analyzer from a previous project to generate a relevant search for a brief using AI

Immersive view for a more enjoyable experience with multiple branches for expliration

The immersive view was filled with features to encourage exploration, collaboration, recognition, personal curation, and creative outputs through a bit of healthy competition.

TRIMMING THE FAT

Nearly at the finish line. The final step was to prioritize the most important features with the Team Leads, our Cofounder, and the developers.

The homepage provided a much improved experience from the original version and would be able to generate value immediately. The immersive view had many features such as finding similar content, adding to boards, encouraging discussion, but implementing these would greatly delay the initial launch. As such, we decided to deprioritize the immersive view, and focus solely on the homepage.

I'll admit, the immersive view was something I was massively keen on, as it provided many branches for discovery, recognition, and persona collections. However, it was more valuable to the creative team to get a functional product for viewing content than it was to wait a few more months for the more immersive experience. So my goal was then to refine the homepage and get it dev-ready.

Content is king

Eliminating barriers to video playback and discovery through UI and UX touches.

Minimizing upload friction with automatic curation

INTERVIEWS

WORKSHOP

Curation was a major pain point. I hosted a workshop to determine which videos should be in the library (e.g. all videos, based on internal rating, client selection, etc).

We decided to automatically populate the library with videos that were ranked in the highest tier internally.

Access & playback that just ✨ works ✨

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

USABILITY TESTING

Users loved hover to play (vs click to play) which I saw in competitor websites.

One click video download + URL copy for easy transfers

Capitalizing on categorization

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

SLACK ANALYSIS

INTERVIEWS

Users mentioned not knowing what was in certain filter categories, and I saw that pattern reflected in the analytics data. Users mentioned however that the way we categorized our content was one of the biggest selling points of the internal library

In the SWOT analysis for competitors, I noticed that they either didn’t have filters or put them at the very top, which minimized discovery.

I decided to emphasize the filters and partially expose them to encourage usage and comprehension.

UX improvements

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

USABILITY TESTING

No more hunting and manual searching to find the original project; clicking on the title takes a user directly to it’s location in the internal app

As inclusive search was frustrating for users, clicking two filters within a category would now be an OR search -facilitating discovery

Exploration

INTERVIEWS

USABILITY TESTING

The previous library had no brand filter. In the redesign, users can click on the brand logo in order to see all content by that brand (as well as a brand filter)

What does good look like?

How can we define success to know if we're hitting the mark?

Hypothesis:

The new library makes it easier for users to find relevant, quality content to share with clients and creators.

Hypothesis:

Spending more time using the internal inspiration tool will reduce overall time spent on inspo (i.e. through external tools) as it’s curated specifically for our needs.

Quantitative

Google analytics

Monitor to see if there’s any continuing usage of the previous inspo library and investigate why

Monitor average time spent, correlate with overall time spent finding inspiration

Qualitative + Quantitative

Usability survey

Ask quantitative and qualitative questions to identify change in experience

Monitor average time spent, correlate with overall time spent finding inspiration

Slack channel

Monitor requests to see if they drop or continue. Identify patterns in the channel to see how the requests change after new tool is rolled out.

🙌 Big wins

Survey results (old library vs redesign)

After a few weeks of use, I ran a survey to gather feedback on first impressons, usability, and overall experience.

Findability?

63% satisfaction→ 92% satisfaction

“Occasionally the AI tagging is wrong but I’m still able to find something that works a lot faster"

Overall experience?

74% satisfaction→ 96% satisfaction

“I love that I’m able to find content that I’ve never seen before.”

Analytics

We used a mix of surveys, time tracking, and slack channel monitoring to identify the effectiveness of the inspo tool. Overall, a 16% reduction in time spent on inspo meant that Creative Leads would have time to generate an additional £133,280 in revenue if extrapolated to the rest of the year.

Visits to old library

-94%

32/week →2/week

Users no longer relied upon the old library to find content

Slack channel requests

-51%

4.9x/day→2.4x/day

The creative team needed to ask each other for help less often

Total time spent on inspo

-16%

24%→20.1% per concept

CLs spent less time on inspiration which freed up time for more creative or challenging tasks.

REFLECTION

This project taught me the importance of taking all stakeholders through the design journey as early as possible. While I had shared my research insights and explorations iteratively with the creative team, I had waited until designs were finalized to share with our cofounder. This prompted me to create a comprehensive design and approval process to give stakeholders increased visibility as well as an opportunity to be as involved as they wanted to be throughout the design process.

I loved working with the creative team and was thrilled to be able to assist in advocating for them. The team leads had requested this product for years, and were thrilled with the final execution 🙌

This project also taught me how to ask questions to quantify impact. I found it easy to empathize with users, but it was much harder to translate that into real £££, particularly for internal tools. With the help of the team leads, I was able to create a strong business justification to get the librry built.

next project

1ST CENTRAL

Quote Journey