Marble Collective is an AI-powered social media platform that centralizes and amplifies women leaders’ media presence, empowering them to showcase their legacy. Our client Kristin, the CEO and Found of Marble Collective, wanted a refresh of their beta product before raising investor funds. She had a lot of great ideas and vision to amplify the works of impactful women and non-binary leaders. She wanted a way to utilize the power of AI advancements to do so.
This project focused on redesigning the About Page for Featured Members to create a dynamic and user-centric profile experience. We redesigned the "About Page" for Marble Collective. The goal was to create a user-centric, editorial-style page that elevates Members' profiles, integrates new interactive features, and ensures a seamless experience for both Members and their audiences.
PROBLEM
Marble Collective's existing About Page lacked clarity, cohesion, and features to effectively showcase the achievements and media presence of its Featured Members. The platform's scattered design made it difficult for Members to highlight their expertise and for audiences to engage with their content. Key usability issues included confusing navigation, limited customization options, and an uninspiring user interface.
HOW MIGHT WE
SOLUTION
We designed a fresh, intuitive About Page that:
Centralizes and organizes Members' media portfolios (e.g., articles, videos, books).
Adds an interactive Q&A Section for audience engagement.
Incorporates a streamlined editing tool to help Members easily update and customize their profiles.
Aligns the page with Marble's brand identity while ensuring scalability for future features like mobile app integration.
IMPACT
Value Delivered:
Improved Usability: Enhanced navigation and organization, making it easier for users to access and interact with Member profiles.
Increased Engagement: The addition of interactive elements, like Q&A and media curation, encouraged deeper audience involvement.
Stronger Brand Identity: A cohesive, editorial-style design elevated Marble’s premium positioning and appeal.
Scalable Foundation: The flexible design accommodates future features, including AI-powered tools and mobile-first functionality.
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COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
We did competitive analysis assess the strengths and weaknesses of Marble Collective compared to it's direct and indirect competitors, such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Google etc.
Marble Collective's strengths:
Marble Colelctive's weaknesses:
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
We found the following patterns in our research when it came to audience member interviews:
Finding Content
Users often discover individuals to follow by first engaging with their work. Once they establish interest, they actively follow their favorite creators across multiple platforms to stay updated. However, a common challenge is the inefficiency of searching for specific information on social media apps, which often lack streamlined search features, making the process slow and frustrating.
Following Content
When it comes to tracking content, users are split between two approaches: regularly monitoring the careers and work of influential individuals or following specific topics of interest. Regardless of the approach, users emphasize the need for tools that allow them to curate their feeds, ensuring they only see content that is relevant to their interests.
Accessing Content
Mobile devices are the primary medium through which users consume and engage with content. Platforms need to prioritize mobile-friendly designs and experiences to accommodate user behavior effectively.
Gender Representation
While users do not consciously think about gender when seeking out content, they naturally find themselves relating more to women and nonbinary creators. Representation matters—seeing women and nonbinary individuals thriving in traditionally male-dominated spaces makes users feel encouraged and inspired, reinforcing the importance of diversity in content creators.
Connection with Content
Authenticity and relatability are key drivers for user engagement. Users gravitate toward content that feels genuine and aligns with their lived experiences, creating a sense of personal connection and trust with the creator.
Connection through Conversation
When it comes to building mentorship or meaningful relationships, users prefer a personal touch over formality. They value one-on-one connections and prefer real human interactions over AI representations. For users, conversations that are authentic and personal foster stronger relationships and a deeper sense of connection.
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PERSONAS & PROBLEM STATEMENTS
We then took the insights from our user research to come up with personas who represent the core needs, motivations and frustrations of the groups.
Featured Member Persona
Two audience member personas naturally emerged from the user research we conducted
HOW DO THE PERSONAS RELATE?
Building on our research findings, we identified opportunities to optimize Marble Collective by focusing on key objectives. For instance, do we aim to make the platform more informative or prioritize memorialization? Should the content be structured around topics or individuals?
Our personas naturally aligned with different quadrants based on these considerations, as illustrated here. Currently, the live version of Marble Collective is positioned in the bottom-right quadrant. However, we saw significant potential to redesign the platform to better serve one or more of these personas.
REDESIGN PRIORITIZATION
Ultimately, we chose to move towards a more informative and topic-based approach while maintaining the platform's core emphasis on individual profiles and personal connections. This balanced approach ensures we address user needs without losing the platform's unique identity.
We noticed two big business needs: 1) Deliver greater value to both personas, 2) Boost user engagement.
However, we had constraints we were working with, primarily the 3 week window wasn’t enough to cover all users and stakeholder categories. We were also working with multiple versions of the newsfeed.
SITE MAP
We audited the site map for the live beta product and then re-envisioned it to add our ideas and incorporate ideas from past iterations that tested well with users.
Existing Site Map
DESIGN CHANGES & ADD-ONS
Based on our research, client's request and ideations, we decided to prioritize these features:
Q&A Section
The Q&A Section serves as a centralized hub for public questions and answers, offering searchable navigation to streamline discovery. It provides a way for users to connect on both personal and industry-specific topics, fostering engagement and knowledge-sharing among audiences and Featured Members.
My Path
Inspired by Sudolabs’ design, "My Path" is a visual timeline showcasing a member’s personal and professional journey. This feature allows Featured Members to highlight notable life events, career milestones, and impactful personal changes, creating a deeper and more relatable narrative for audiences.
Call to Action (CTA)
The redesigned CTA section enhances user interactions with actionable capabilities, including follow features, a “Book Me” button for personal rates, and a DM option for private communication between Featured Members. These tools provide multiple pathways for audiences to connect with and engage Featured Members directly.
Virtual Assistant
The adoption of an AI-powered virtual assistant brings a chat-box feature from the newsfeed into individual profile pages. This assistant guides members through their profiles, offering prompts and support to ensure they effectively navigate and optimize their page content.
Here is a side by side comparison of the current (long 1-page) "About" page vs the redesigning "Profile" broken into subpages with a ton more user-requested features:
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
View prototype
REFLECTIONS
Balancing Engagement and Simplicity
While adding interactive features like the Q&A Section and "Book Me" button enhances user engagement, it’s crucial to maintain a clean, intuitive experience. Overloading the page with too many actions could overwhelm users. Designing for clarity and hierarchy ensures seamless navigation.
The Power of Storytelling
The introduction of the My Path feature highlighted the importance of personal storytelling in creating authentic connections. By allowing Featured Members to share pivotal life moments and career milestones, the platform builds a stronger emotional connection between Members and their audience.Leveraging AI Thoughtfully
The Virtual Assistant demonstrates the potential of AI to simplify tasks and guide users. However, user trust in AI remains a challenge. Ensuring the assistant feels helpful and non-intrusive is key to adoption while balancing automation with authenticity.User-Driven Features Are Key
Incorporating features like Follow capabilities and DM functionality reflects the importance of addressing user needs for meaningful and actionable connections. Providing opportunities for both public interaction (Q&A) and private engagement (DMs) allows flexibility in how users build relationships.Iterative Design is Essential
This project reinforced the value of testing and refining features based on real user feedback. Understanding user frustrations and motivations ensured the solutions were not just innovative but also practical and aligned with their needs.