Tencent Comics Creator Studio
The project overview
The project is a system redesign of Tencent Animation & Comics, which was launched in 2018. Tencent Comics is an animation and comics website where users can view numerous animation & comics content and comics creators can share their creative work with the world. The project focused on the redesign of the Creator Studio to improve their experience on managing their uploaded content and grow their channel, interacting with the audience, and making money all in one place.
My role: Sole UX designer in the team
Product type: Website
The challenge
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The unclear registration process and lack of flexibility while managing the account
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Cluttered information lacks hierarchy, and the navigation system is unorganized
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Lack of some high-demanding features that meet user needs
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Some important features don't get much attention from the user end
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Create a well-organized media library in order to manage and display all the comics across the website, and improve the recommendation and tag system
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Standardize the upload requirement and help users to format their uploads, in order to make the upload experience better
Business strategies
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Promoting the platform and attracting more creative content contributors who can be regular contributors to Tencent
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Improve the retention rate of general users and keep the retention rate of active content contributors
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Help users analyze the performance of their account and find a way to improve it
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Help high-quality comics and their creators to get more attention in the community, as well as get more chances for other business opportunities, including films, shows, and publish industry
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Help users manage business contacts and collaborations with Tencent
Our target users
Tencent comics & animations is a well-known platform for all types of comics authors to show their talents to the world. The system update focuses on experienced authors who needs to manage their business-related information, as well as those young authors who are promoting themselves and their work.
From the user research, we learnt increasing needs of performance tracker and more ways of interacting with the readers online. Given the increasing number of authors who are working with the platform, they need a place to manage their existing collaborations.
The uniqueness of comics
Given the special form of comics, they come in as "panels". It normally contains 7-8 panels on each page and each chapter includes 10-12 pages. There are two popular forms, one is by page, and the other is by a long picture combining different pages. There is a strict size format of each panel, defined by the platform. Most readers prefer vertically scolling for each chapter.
In order to archive and present the comics series in the library, some descriptive information about the comics is required, including the form of the comics, the comics description, the topics, the audience, descriptive tags, thumbnails, and previews.
Uploading a new comics chapter requires several steps, it is essential to show users where they are in the system.
Research on the current version
We wanted to know what worked on the current system and what did not, so that I checked the result from task-based testings on it and reviewed the click-through rate. New users generally spent long time on registering a new account, and the retention rate of new users was low. The upload requirement was not very flexible and hard to make changes to existing items. Experienced users had problems with managing and checking up on information about their account and their work. It was difficult to see the performance of each upload and there were not many ways for them to promote their work and interact with the readers.
The Solution
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Separate the homepage content into two main groups: content management and business management
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The local navigation bar contains all the features and functions related to creating content and remains visible to the user at any time, in case they want to make changes to any part of their creative work. the business tools are listed in the tool module section.
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Add new features including analytics, contract management, and monetization help the comics creator keep a track of the comics' statistics and their business growth.
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The analytics provide data and information about the channel performance, including the number of views per day, the number of subscribers, the number of comments under a comics series, and the number of live chats. Those data can be sorted by date and time, for example, the comics creator can check the number of views/subscribers for the past 30 days or view the information by day/week/month.
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Monetization and contract management can provide comics creators the platform to collaborate with Tencent Animation & Comics to become columnists in the community. Comics creators who create high-quality comics can submit an application to Tencent Animation & Comics to be considered as a columnist. Selected candidates can manage their work and contracts using business management tools
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The new video upload feature allows comics creators to create animated content, or provide video content related to the comics
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The new feature encourages comics creators to create animated comics and other supported content to increase the creativity
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500+
Authors
6000+
Columns
20000+
Uploads
Classic social media login options: QQ/WeChat | Ask the user to specify the account type: personal account or corporate account | Ask the user for personal information including name, address and ID photo for verification | Local navigation on the side, feature image in the top center, message center in the top right, tools in the bottom center | Ask the user to upload thumbnails, both vertical and horizontal, for different display | The user is asked to provide detailed information about the new series, inducing the name, a short description, the comics type, the target audience etc. |
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The user is asked to provide detailed information about the new chapter | Tags are required when the user create a new series, and it is an important factor to describe the comics and to determine the way of archiving it in the library | Here is the list of uploaded comics and their status and user can make changes to them when click on one item from the list. |