YY Live User Growth

YY Live User Growth Project is a group of 3 short-term programs on YY Live, a popular living streaming service in China. The goal is optimizing the onboarding experience for new users who came from TikTok and Baidu, and the project achieved an increase of 50K+ daily active users.

Role:
Product Manager

Methods:
Competitive Analysis
Wireframe
A/B Testing
Data analysis

Team:
YY Live User Growth Team

Duration:
30 weeks

Ⅰ. Overview

Challenge

YY Live is the most popular entertainment livestream platform in China with 3M+ users.

However, the data indicates that an unexpected decline in Daily Active Users (DAU) of YY Live mobile user occurred in 2020, compared to 2019.

Project Objectives

In response to the drop of DAU, we tried to seek for a 6-months digital solution with the marketing team to increase DAU. The objectives of this project is to boost DAU of mobile user, enhance new user engagement and retention rate, and introduce the app key features to new users.
Achieve DAU growth
Enhance user retention
Introduce key features

Ⅱ. Timeline

Product Management

In order to reach desired goals and launch the project within 2 months, I developed product strategy to define each stage of the product lifecycle and inform the decision-making process.

01 Identify Growth Opportunities

02 Design and Develop

Work with the marketing team to identify user growth opportunities in the new user onboarding journey, and conduct competitive analysis on onboarding user flow design
Collaborate with the UI and UX design team to design a new onboarding experience and the software engineering team to develop and launch the program

03 Data Mining and Analysis

04 Product Optimization

Conduct A/B testing and analyze the collected data with the analytics team to understand which design work or does not work
Based on post-launched statistics, iterate the product with the user growth teams to enhance user experience while achieving business goals

Key Project Timelines

To implement my product vision and achieve business objectives, I crafted product key timelines to coordinate teamwork with stakeholders (engineers, designers, data analytics, marketing, and legal) and optimize workflow, so we could bring the product to market and iterate existing features in a collective effort.

Ⅲ. Research

iDENTIFY growth Opprotunities

With the support of the advertising team, we discovered onboarding experience was absent for new users who were directed to YY Live mobile app after clicking on our advertisements on TikTok, a short-form video platform, and Baidu, a search engine.  

wHO ARE TARGET USERS?

Target users are new users who had never visited or registered an account in YY Live. There are two types of new users: from TikTok and from Baidu. 
TikTok users clicked on YY Live advertisements on the TikTok side, downloaded the app, and used YY Live for the first time.
Baidu users arrived in YY Live for the first time via the gamification systems on the Baidu app.

Competitive Analysis

I wanted to see how the competitors welcome new users on their platforms, so I conducted competitive analysis on 4 livestreaming apps by comparing their features and design. I also analyzed their strengths and weaknesses to understand the market competition, identify opportunities, and find an edge. Below is some common onboarding design features that I discovered.
Gamification
Monetary Reward
Notification

Ⅲ. Design

Task Flow

To visualize the task flow of new user onboarding experience, I created a task flow and presented it to the developers and the designers to better demonstrate the user flow.

Wireframe

Based on the task flow, I sketched a wireframe on Axure RP Pro to demonstrate the design of the onboarding page, the process of doing a task, and acquiring rewards. Each window has a closed button that allows users to quit the program anytime. I worked closely with the UX design team to turn the wireframe into a high-fidelity prototype.

Visual Design

To personalize the onboarding experience, I decided to keep the visual design styles unified. It made the experience from other platforms to YY Live via the advertisements visually customized and consistent  and created a continuation of the post-click experience from the other platforms.

Then, I communicated the visual design ideas of onboarding with the UI design team, and we came up with the 3 visual design themes: festival, nature, and amusement (from left to right).

Developing the Programs

When the product design concept was fully refined, I turned the wireframe into a product requirement document (below) to elaborate on the program features, functionalities, and design details and designed A/B tests to collect user data for data analysis and product iteration.

Then, I scheduled a development period with the engineering team and handed them the document along with the high-fidelity prototype made by the design team. Then, the product was ready to be developed.

During the developing phase, I periodically checked in with the developers and answered any questions they may have.

In the testing phase, I walked through the programs with the quality assurance team to ensure error-free before launching the program.

Ⅳ. Iteration

Product Optimization

After the first launch of the program, I wanted to understand the new user response to the onboarding design and make product iteration to optimize user experience, so I designed and executed 10+ a/b tests to evaluate the usability of the new features and analyzed the post-launched statistics with the analytics team.

In 5 months, based on the a/b testing data, I was able to add 3 new design to the onboarding experience and enhance the user experience in order to meet the business objectives.

1. Interactive motion

To make the onboarding experience more immersive and increase the retention rate, I iterated the interface of the task in progress icon, and I added interactive elements, a task-in-progress bar, and a timer at the bottom to motivate users to explore the live streaming features and return to the app in the next few days.

Result

I conducted a A/B test, in which 50% of the target users saw the new UI, and the rest saw the original interface.

The data indicated that the retention rate of the people visiting the new design increased by 1.3 %.

2. UI Enhancement

The next product iteration was to design animation and replace with the new UI design to enhance UX experience. Animation was added to the reward deposit page after successfully completing an assigned task, where number was rolling in loading, and moving banner was exhibited at the bottom. The new UI design was a result of the collaboration between me and the UI designer.

Result

I also designed and coordinated a A/B test to enable half users to see the new animation, and the other 50% could not see the new design.

The a/b testing data indicated that the retention rate of the people who had the new UX increased by 0.9 %.

3. New Payment Method

I proposed and led an initiative to onboard WeChat Pay as an alternative deposit method in addition to the existing deposit system, capitalizing on a mobile digital wallet service with 800M+ users to enhance user convenience.

Result

I improved information security by adding a phone number verification step in the deposit process to protect user financial data as well as company property.

Ⅴ. Result

Achievements

In 5 months, with the support of other teams, the project achieved a success in the following 5 areas.