Markit
Markit AI is an event marketing startup that helps brands and businesses make the most of their audience through a suite of modern texting tools.
Role
Product Design Intern
Timeline
May - July 2024
Tools
Figma
Linear
Internship Overview
During my junior summer, I had the amazing opportunity to work as the first ever UX design intern for Markit AI, a budding tech startup in Boston that focuses on text marketing. As the only UX design intern and 1 of 2 UX designers at the company, I really got the chance to take charge of the design process and make impactful changes on Markit’s product.
An all encompassing experience...
During my internship, I had the unique opportunity to do work on both UX design and research. In this case study, I will go over my biggest projects and what I earned from them!
DESIGN
I worked on 100+ design tickets during the internship. Markit is very fast moving, so almost all of my design changes went live on within 1-2 weeks. I worked closely with the developers to ensure that my designs are implemented efficiently and accurately.
RESEARCH
The Markit team hasn't had the time to conduct detailed usability tests, so I offered to help them out! After scripting and running tests on all the core features, I proposed 57 design changes based on the results. These changes propelled a 40% increase in texts sent post-implementation.
Project Highlight
Free-Tier Texting
The Problem
Free-tier users are confused by the two-way texting feature.
Markit’s main feature helps their users send human-sounding mass texts to their followers. The goal is for these texts to sound like a natural conversation instead of an automated message, which encourages followers to text back if they have more questions. However, chatting back and forth with individual followers, also known as “two-way texting” is currently only available to Markit+ subscribers. This confused a lot of free-tier users who were also trying to reply to their followers texts.
Design Goals
How might we make free-tier texting easier to navigate?
1
In-app language changes
Improve existing UI to clarify that two-way conversations are unavailable on free plan
2
Incentivize upgrading
Use this feature to incentivize free plan users to upgrade to Markit+
3
SMS Messaging
Update SMS messaging from Markit to prevent further confusion
The Solution
Utilize more intuitive language in the app designs.
Goal 1 of 3
Clarify that two-way conversations are unavailable on free plan
Similar to LinkedIn and Tinder, I utilized a blur effect over profile photos and messages in order to indicate that the user has unread messages, but they are unable to reply with their current plan. Users can now see instantly that this feature is unavailable, whereas before they had to read a long text explanation first.
Goal 2 of 3
Incentivize free plan users to upgrade to Markit+
The banner I designed emphasizes the number of people who have replied to the user’s mass texts, which incentivizes them to upgrade in order to respond. If the user feels that the banner is cluttering their screen, they can also choose to close it. Clicking on both the banner and blurry messages leads to an educational modal on Markit+, which allows users to easily upgrade if interested.
Goal 3 of 3
Update the language on Markit’s automated text messages
Web App Solution
Next, I designed the web app version of this feature, which combines elements of the mobile version on the same screen.
The future of free-tier texting...
While my design works well for the current product, in the future, Markit plans to expand the two-way conversation feature to free tier users as well. However, they would still need to limit the feature somehow in order to incentivize customers to upgrade to Markit+.
It was my job to come up with the design for a future version of this feature that would address these goals. My solution is shown below!
Free-Tier Texting, Part II
Limit the number of replies the user can send
Doing this will give users a taste of this feature, as well as incentivize them to upgrade when they run out of replies in order to continue the conversations they were already having. The UI clearly distinguishes between the replies sent on free plan (which are gray) vs. the ones sent with Markit+ (which are blue).
More Projects
I worked on 100+ design tickets during my internship, so I wasn't able to include everything I did on this page. If you are interested in some of my other projects, you can check it out here!
