Project: Shortz • Press coverage

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Project overview

Zedge is a leading B2B2C SaaS platform in the mobile personalization space, powering content from top-tier creators to 30M+ monthly active users worldwide.

This initiative evolved through multiple phases over 2–3 years, from initial discovery project to a fully scaled product set for a product market fit, iterating based on a combination of extensive research and analytics.

My role

My contribution at various phases was:

• driving initial research at the discovery project,
• co-leading the product and prioritising and validating hypotheses,
• running end-to-end usability tests, data analysis, and multiple iterations of UX research,
• facilitating team workshops and cross-functional stakeholders alignment,
• prototyping, wireframing, and designing final mockups, including a UI components library.

Team structure

From two to ten+ team members at various stages. Collaborated with product managers, a game designer, front- and back-end engineers (cross-platform, iOS, Android, Web), senior design director, and senior product director.

External cross-functional stakeholders included the chief product officer, board representative, marketing team, monetisation team, AdOps team, and CMS team.

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Table of contents:

0️⃣ Outcome

I took the business from idea to MVP to a fully scaled product. Led end-to-end design, research, and data analysis while co-driving product decisions. Grew subscriber count and hit major KPIs: +136% install-to-second-chapter conversion, +80% D1, +69% D7, +28% D30 retention, and +681% weekly stories completed. Expanded Zedge’s product portfolio, strengthened its position in the entertainment industry, and secured product’s acquisition by a larger competitor.

1️⃣ Project phases and iterations

1. Discovery project

(Internal name: “Zedge Stories”)

Challenge: How Zedge can enter and disrupt a competitive market leveraging its strengths.

• Led the exploratory research of a new feature/product opportunity,
• Evaluated market fit through a detailed competitive landscape analysis and UX audit for existing products.

Collaborated with a Game designer and senior design director, with multiple business and engineering stakeholders, including board representative.

• 🖼️ Discovery artefacts (examples)

2. Turning Proof-of-concept into MVP

Challenge: Gain a clear understanding of user pains and motivations, secure board commitment and a dedicated team, and turn around poor performance across all KPIs.

• Co-led data analysis (Redash, Amplitude, Google console, iTunes connect), identifying drops in new user funnel; sketching and prototyping,
• Led two rounds of end-to-end moderated usability tests (script, plan, testers sourcing and scheduling, facilitation, and insights analysis),
• User flows and wireframes, including WTFs (What The Flow!),
• Resulted in a redesign of core flows and UI based on findings.

Collaborated with a Product manager.

KPIs: