CONTENDA

A VC-backed Generative AI startup that transforms technical content into ready-to-publish blogs, tutorials, and more.

NOTE - this project is active and protected under NDA

TIMEFRAME

Jan 2022 - Present

MY ROLE

Principle UX and UI Designer

Branding & Visual Identity

PROBLEM

We needed to ship Contenda’s very first user-facing, Generative AI platform.

Contenda needed an entire brand identity overhaul and a platform that felt new and novel, instead of feeling like another text editing platform.

WHERE WE STARTED

Contenda’s first product was geared for Twitch streamers... and the original branding reflected that.

Dark mode was my friend.

Our very first platform shipped in 3 weeks.
It was geared toward repurposing tweet to tweets, blog to threads... lots of quick actions, low cognitive load, get stuff out and posted.

...but it didn’t work out.

USER TESTING METHODS

Qualitative - Interviews


Quantitative - Usability Testing

FINDINGS

We found a lot of short-term improvements to the platform, such as:

We found a lot of short-term improvements to the platform, such as:

Home Dashboard

  • Clustering all of the cards together confused users

  • Users didn’t have enough uploads, nor did they want to start their workflow from uploads, frequently enough to use the space

  • Users often clicked out of the editing workflow and wanted to see their drafts

Enhancements

  • Divided out posts by original type

  • Started the default viewed tabs on “Blogs” because users immediately wanted to transform blogs to threads

  • Added in drafts functionality to the immediate dashboard

Editing Workflow (Blog to Thread)

  • Users loved the drawer pull-out because it made it feel quicker to use, but wanted to see the corresponding blog post

  • Users wanted a character counter and ability to upload net-new images, not just attach images from their blog post

Enhancements

  • Added the original blog post side by side!

  • Added a Tweet counter (to add the 1/x text to the end of the tweet) - users LOVED this feature for threads

  • Rolled the image selection and upload into one image button

  • Streamlined the add new / delete new tweets

  • Added a character counter

BUT OVERALL…

this platform wasn’t meeting our user’s needs.
They could only do so much transforming tweet to tweet or blog to tweet - they wanted to be able to create blogs, which was a MUCH harder technical challenge to tackle.

we went back to the drawing board and spent a looong time redefining our core features.

RESEARCH

and we landed on a few key takeaways to guide the next iteration of the design.

Repurposing technical content is important, but annoying

Repurposing technical content is important, but annoying

Editing technical content is overwhelming

Editing technical content is overwhelming

People hate listening to their own voices

People hate listening to their own voices

Generative AI tends to make sh*t up

Generative AI tends to make sh*t up

WHICH LED US TO OUR NEW PLATFORM

Upload Form

Beta users are able to submit their YouTube video, along with their API access key, to transform the video into one of the three options.

The Editor

Once the video has finished processing, the user’s emailed a link to edit their blog!

THE NEW BRAND

A text editor needed to be easy to read, lots of negative space, and enough contrast to make it interesting.

Meet the new design system:

And of course, we had to update the landing page to match.

Currently under construction.

NEXT PROJECT

maeve