You’re Good to Give

Creating a social gifting service people actually love

Social gifting app and website

Embly is a social gifting service that filters the noise from your Facebook feed, surfaces the noteworthy moments in your friends’ lives, and connects you with relevant big deals and offers for them at retailers.

Skip the latte art and restaurant check-ins, and find out who just moved, had a baby, got a promotion, ran a big race, has an upcoming birthday, and more. You can also throw down some cash and make it a bigger gift.

My role

• Product strategy

• IA, wireframes and interaction design

• UI team management

• Visual design and brand management

• User testing and research

I owned and directed the entire front-end of the service, from brand and voice expression, to web and mobile wireframes, interaction design and graphic design. I created wireframes and interaction guidelines across the service, directed and managed the designers and front-end developers. I also participated in product vision, roadmap, and strategy.

A lean UX approach was taken and the product was modified on the fly in design and implementation, with oversight and direction. You can see the differences from wireframe to mockup in some detail shots.

Interaction is part of the design

As interactions were such a key part of the design on this project, I started laying out the groundwork early, including notebook sketches on interaction principles.  Transitions are key elements particularly for mobile where they can take the place of instruction as well as add to delight and the quality of the experience.

Tuning the business model – not just the pixels

Sometimes you need to step back and look at the whole product and approach, not just the pages and the features.

We found that simply offering high value discount codes fatigued users and they churned out after about a week of seeing offers, even if they ended up claiming a few.

We turned the model on its side and instead of claiming offers for yourself, you could only gift them to friends based on their demographic info (also available to us through Facebook).

This really opened up the viral aspect, quickly spreading among friend groups and networks with no additional marketing or advertising.

Consistent praise...

The Embly app and website were consistently rated by users in surveys, usability studies and unsolicited feedback as easy to use, gorgeous and fun.

...through research and iteration

In addition to user surveys and proactively asking for feedback I built a custom usability lab and we regularly brought users in to experience them using the service and talk to them.

And the Swag

With such great design assets, I couldn’t help myself, and made a few pieces for everyone in the office.

In their words