Driving Conversations Through Engagement Staters
My Role
Lead Designer
Platform
Desktop
Timeline
04. 2022- 12. 2022
Boosting Engagement: The Challenge & Opportunity
Many readers come across an article with thoughts to share but struggle to find a clear way to join the discussion. This makes it harder for them to engage, leading to missed opportunities and lower conversion rates.
Analyzing user behavior revealed a key issue: only 10% of visitors who landed on an article made it to the comment section. This meant many users simply weren’t aware of the ongoing conversations.
The team saw an opportunity to fix this by making discussions more visible earlier in the reading experience—helping users discover, engage, and ultimately increase conversions from anonymous readers to registered users.
To address this, the team took an iterative approach, refining the product based on real-world experiments.
The first version launched in October 2021 on Reach PLC sites (Hull Live & Bristol Live) and focused on improving CTA visibility, increasing the average click-through rate (CTR) to 0.6%.
The second iteration introduced color customization, allowing Reach PLC to integrate the feature into their CMS more effectively.
These initial refinements provided valuable insights, laying the groundwork for further improvements in engagement and conversion strategies.
Tackling Engagement Roadblocks: The Core Issues
Despite early iterations, the Engagement Starter (ES) still faced key usability challenges that limited its effectiveness in driving conversions. Stakeholder feedback and user behavior analysis revealed three major issues:
Low Visibility
Users often overlooked the Engagement Starter, reducing its impact on driving participation.
Inactive Conversations
It was unclear how the ES should behave when a conversation was initially active but later closed, leading to inconsistencies in user experience.
Empty State
Handling
If a conversation was never active, the ES lacked a clear function, leaving users without a compelling reason to engage.
Process: Turning Insights into Action
Understanding Product Requirement
User Segments Considered
Lightening Demo
User Flow
Testing & Refinement
Project Goal
The primary objective of this project is to enhance user engagement with the Engagement Starter (ES) by introducing interactive elements like featured comments and polls. This improvement aims to make ES more:
Scalable – Easily adaptable for different content types and use cases.
Revenue-Driving – Supporting revenue-sharing opportunities.
Registration-Enabling – Encouraging anonymous users to sign up.
Engagement-Enabling – Driving more interactions with comments and polls.
Content & Placement Relevant – Ensuring seamless integration with article content.
User Delight Focused – Enhancing the reading and commenting experience.
Data-Driven – Collecting insights to optimize future iterations.
Stakeholder Considerations & Constraints
Business stakeholders emphasized the need for a scalable and monetizable solution that also supports user registration and engagement. From a technical standpoint, a key constraint is maintaining the same ES size as the current version to prevent Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) issues.
Supporting Data & Insights
Prior iterations of ES have already demonstrated value, with the current default version increasing the average click-through rate (CTR) to 0.6% compared to articles without ES. This data highlights the opportunity to further improve engagement by surfacing interactive content more effectively.
Understanding Product Requirement
User Segments Considered
Lightening Demo
User Flow
Testing & Refinement
Understanding Product Requirement
User Segments Considered
Lightening Demo
User Flow
Testing & Refinement
Following the initial discovery phase in collaboration with the product manager, we systematically delineated the essential components for the MVP, distilling the features that were imperative for launch, and further identifying supplementary features that would enrich the user experience:
For Feature Comment
Have a consistent UI design as the default ES.
Allow admin user to choose the comment they want to featured.
For Poll:
Reduce user friction point for voting flow.
Show 4 voting options due to the limitation.
Allow both anonymous user and require user authentication to vote as options.
Have a CTA to direct user to comment section.
Have a front-end setting for admin user to set up the poll.
The re-ordering feature for admin user. (nice to have)
The display of total vote count. (nice to have)
The poll discussion tab with voting badge. (nice to have)
Understanding Product Requirement
User Segments Considered
Lightening Demo
User Flow
Testing & Refinement
Featured Comment
Poll
Anonymous User Voting Flow
Anonymous User Voting Flow (Require auth to see result)
Anonymous User Voting Flow (Require auth to see vote)
Admin User Flow
Understanding Product Requirement
User Segments Considered
Lightening Demo
User Flow
Testing & Refinement
We have interviewed 6 admin users from various clients on two major flows, a). if they understand the authentication button on the admin console site. b). If they can create a poll and interact with the drop down menu.
Two out of six users were confused by the toggle buttons but they managed to understand at the end.
Half of the users are expecting to have more thank 4 voting options in the setting page.
One admin users were confused the "Delete Poll" and "End Poll" button.
Refinement
We added disabled states for toggle button, to help user understand the context, but the challenge we have is we didn't have the state for the original toggle component. It takes time for devs to build it and update all the components, and the impacted users are small, so it stayed in the low-priority backlog.
Added addition prompt page for user before they click on "Close Poll" or "End Poll" button.
Solution: Designing for Impact
Default ES
Featured Comment
Poll
Reflection: Lessons from the Journey
🔹 Early Accessibility Integration – We should involve accessibility experts from the start to avoid retroactive fixes.
🔹 Adapting to Restructuring – Navigating leadership changes required adaptability and clear communication.
🔹 Tight Timelines & Prioritization – Prioritizing core user needs over “nice-to-haves” ensured a successful launch.
🔹 User-Centric Focus – Prioritizing user engagement over rigid conversion goals led to better results.
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