iHeartRadio was experiencing a 56% drop off rate between the first and last screen of their registration flow on mobile. How can we improve first-time user experience to increase engagement and downstream retention?
My Role
UX research and strategy.
Timeline
Jun - Sep 2020
Partners
Helen Maxwell, Product Manager
Vinny Casha, Product Manager
Heather Vaughn, UX Research Lead
Selected screens from the registration flow.
Overview
Registration is key to establishing a long-term relationship with users, as it’s often the first interaction they have with a product. While monitoring the health of the iOS and Android apps, the analytics team raised an alarming figure: both were averaging a 56% drop off rate between the first and last screen of the registration flow.
I reviewed this data with the product team, as well as verbatims from related user tests, and was able to identify potential pain points around registration:
Missing content. The flow only focused on radio and barely mentioned podcasts and other content types iHeartRadio offered.
Genres are too broad. The options displayed may not match with how users identify their preferences.
Copy is ambiguous. Users may not understand why we are asking for their personal information, such as gender and age.
Too many steps. There is high abandonment at key points of the flow, and the effort asked of users may not equal the app’s perceived value.
Challenge
At this point there wasn’t any UX research dedicated to Registration, and while the data we did have was a good starting point, we didn’t feel comfortable iterating on such an important area of the app without more evidence.
To get a better understanding of the current state, I suggested testing the entire registration flow — from app launch to first stream — to get insights straight from new users.
Test group A. After creating an account, users were instructed to select their favorite genres and play a suggested station.
Test group B. After creating an account, users were instructed to select their favorite genres and ignore the suggested station.
Test group C. After creating an account, users were instructed to skip genre selection, taking them directly to the app.
Solution
With the blessing of the UX Research lead, I wrote a test plan and scheduled nine 45-minute moderated interviews.
Before each test began, I asked participants questions about their experiences with any audio streaming service to give context to their responses throughout our conversation. I then guided each participant to create an account and into one of three recommendation experiences (referred to as Group A, Group B, and Group C, all seen above). Each participant completed a SUS survey at the end of the interview to gauge usability.
Results
The interviews led to a massive amount of data to synthesize, and we gained a deep understanding of new user impressions of the registration flow. The key findings we reported to leadership were as follows:
Yes, we’re missing content. Only giving participants the option to choose radio genres set the wrong expectation of what they’ll see later in the app. Users need to be better informed of the content iHeartRadio offers, especially since Podcasts is such an important part of scaling the business.
Yes, genres are too broad. Not only were participants expecting more granularity, but the images paired with each radio genre were polarizing to some, giving the impression that content would be limited to only what’s popular. We should consider artist selection instead.
Yes, we’re being too ambiguous. The reasoning we give when asking for Gender and Age clouded participants' perception of iHeartRadio. Many were concerned about how that data could impact their in-app experience and already had less confidence the content they’d get recommended.
But… maybe it’s not too long? None of the users indicated the process was too long. Perhaps the drop off is due to reasons listed above, but there still may be opportunities to shorten the flow and get users listening faster, like limiting push primers and location prompts on first visit.
Additionally, SUS results were fairly positive: participants gave the registration flow an average score of 77.50, equating to a B+ grade.
Updated screens from the registration flow.
Conclusion
As the project progressed I oversaw other UX designers take on various iterations of the flow (seen above), including an updated welcome screen to better showcase content offerings and an expanded recommendation experience. Work is ongoing but initial updates are due for release in Spring 2021.