Role
Contract Product Designer
Timeline
Sept - Dec 2023
Fall 2024 (Individual Rework)
Team
5 Designers
1 Project Lead
2 Stakeholders
Disciplines
What is Pinterest Business?
Background
Pinterest is an inspirational visual platform that people use to find ideas and discover creators that inspire them. To power the inspiration found on Pinterest, merchants of all sizes come to build their presence by uploading their catalog to promote their products.
our involvement
Throughout the Fall 2023 semester, my team at Berkeley Innovation collaborated with two Senior Product Designers at Pinterest to reimagine the "Quick Promote" feature. Designed to support small to medium-sized merchants juggling multiple responsibilities, this feature streamlines the process of launching an online campaign into a simple, three-step experience.
However, we identified opportunities to better tailor this experience to the needs of new merchants. We worked to enhance the Quick Promote feature, delivering user-centered solutions aimed at empowering merchants and optimizing their journey on Pinterest.
Thus we asked,
How Might We...
design an approachable and dedicated ad creation flow to support new merchants promoting their products on Pinterest for the first time?
sneak peak...
Pin Upload Flow
The first step in promoting a pin is selecting an existing one, but the current user flow is unclear, causing users frustration right at step one. To create a more user-friendly experience, we introduced a side pop-up organized by existing boards and recent pins, making pin selection more intuitive and welcoming.
This ultimately reduced endless scrolling by putting everything into one place, allowing users to promote their pins with ease, overall making step one more efficient and smooth.
Specified Audience Targeting
The current way to narrow down an audience consists of multiple embedded lists, causing users to lose track of their selections.
Demographic selection now provides pill containers for organization and visual tracking of already selected categories, allowing businesses to be more intentional in choosing who to promote to.
UI Improvements & Guidance
The current interface of the ad creation process utilizes shades of grey and users found that it was not motivating and caused a lack of attention to important features.
The journey is now more enticing & joyful, allowing new merchants to be inspired in their creation with a way to visualize their progression by parts. Completing their advertisement leads them into more resources on where to track their post insights or to promote another pin.
Let’s take a few steps back... how did it originally look?
what already exists?
This is Pinterest’s current quick promote ad-creation experience, broken down into three main steps: the visual, general advertisement goals, and the promote button.
understanding small/medium businesses & our competitors
goals and obstacles of small/medium businesses
The current experience is straightforward, but we had to first understand their thought process regarding their business. After doing secondary research on Small/Medium Businesses (SMBs) and their needs, we found that they consistently have three main components in mind when promoting their products:
Product Visibility
Aim to get their products seen by a wide target audience
Time & Resources
Many responsibilities with little to no time or resources
Direct Features
Straightforward process to control and promote their ads
Competitive analysis
Pinterest isn’t known for advertising, thus many businesses opt to promote on other main platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Google Ads. My team created a feature analysis on each platform to compare the key differences in their ad creation processes.
We found that many of the platforms did not have a source of customer support, or even guidance within the UI for each step. Pinterest also lacked targeting options, a feature that served as a commodity amongst other platforms.
diving into the current ad creation flow through 6 interviews
research
With limited resources, it was challenging to directly contact Small/Medium Businesses (SMBs), so we broadened our definition to include a range of SMBs, from small local restaurants to self-made artists.
We conducted 6 interviews broken down into 2 parts:
User Interviews
Interviewing both new and experienced SMBs to identify motivations & obstacles when promoting their business.
Contextual Inquiries
Noting down points of frustration and observing moments of delight vs. discomfort while going through the current ad creation process.
So, who are our main users?
personas and journey mapping
We identified two types of Pinterest Business users and created personas to address their unique needs. After presenting these to our stakeholders, we focused on the Enthusiastic “Newbie,” the primary user of the three-step ad creation process, over the Marketing “Veteran,” who'd likely opt for the advanced ad creation process instead.
Our stakeholders requested we include both personas in our journey mapping. While their initial ad creation steps are similar, their differing thought processes and experience significantly shape the overall experience.
what did we learn?
key insights
Pinterest is unique in the way it prioritizes ease of use and efficiency, enabling users to promote one pin at a time. But because of this simplicity, the 3-step ad creation process is condensed onto a single page and ultimately overwhelms first-time users.
User Flow
Aspects of Pinterest’s UI are hard to find and users find difficulty noticing different steps because they seem hidden.
Creating vs. Promoting a Pin
Users experience confusion distinguishing between creating and promoting a pin. This step is difficult because it's unique to Pinterest.
Lack of Guidance
Being a business means building an online presence. New business fall short due to a lack of experience and need a sense of guidance to get a foot through the door.
Insufficient Targeting Options
Targeting options are the key factor into whether an ad is successful or not. Having the necessary options to personalize who will see the ad is crucial to its success.
Our Solution: build an online presence with ease & efficiency
Each step of the three-step process has been enhanced to increase usability and ease, all while keeping Pinterest's unique characteristics.
Step 1: Select a Pin to Publish
Currently
In the first step of the process, users are prompted to open a separate page in order to create a pin. This step proved to result in frustration and confusion as it was not a familiar step amongst other platforms and disrupted the flow of creating an ad.
Our New Design
Side pop-up for the ability to select an existing pin in the first step of the ad-creation process, bridging the gap between creating a pin versus using an existing pin with drop down buttons for organization. Users can now experience a more efficient process by having all their necessary resources in one screen.
Step 2: Fill out the Details & Narrow the Audience
Currently
The current way to narrow down an audience consists of multiple embedded lists, causing users to lose track of their selections and cause confusion.
Our New Design
Targeting now includes a “selected-box” for users to keep track of the interests they are clicking, allowing users to be intentional in the audience they are choosing in order to optimize the promoted ad.
Step 3: Publish the Pin & Next Steps
Currently
The current ad creation interface uses shades of grey, which users found unengaging and distracting from key features. First impressions described it as intimidating and uninspiring, especially for first-time users. Additionally, after promoting a pin, there are no clear next steps, such as tracking insights or confirming if the ad was published successfully.
Our New Design
The journey is now more enticing & joyful, allowing new merchants to be inspired in their creation with a way to visualize their progression by parts. Completing their advertisement leads them into more resources on where to track their post insights or to promote another pin.
Metrics to Measure
To ensure that we've successfully enhanced the three-step ad creation process, Pinterest should track:
Abandonment Rate
An increase in people who start but do not complete indicates that new process is too complex.
Completion Rate
A higher percentage of users who complete their ad indicates a success in our redesign.
Retention Rate
If merchants continue to utilize Pinterest, then they are finding value in promoting on Pinterest.
reflection
This project taught me the importance of tailoring solutions to a specific user group. By focusing on new merchants, we discovered how their mindset and challenges, such as balancing time and resources, shaped their interaction with Pinterest's ad creation process. Through our research, I learned how to identify key pain points and align design solutions directly with user needs.
Unlike previous projects, this experience required working within the niche of small-to-medium businesses, which pushed me to think differently about user motivations. Navigating unfamiliar problem spaces, speaking with business owners, and refining solutions based on their insights helped me grow as a designer and adapt my problem-solving approach.