Readers have started to turn away from content a brand writes about itself. They trust what other users say, because users have no commercial reason to say it. In the age of influencers, people won't just listen to a powerhouse — unless you give them the room to build something of their own.

This piece brings together two studies I did on POPxo, a platform for millennial women: a heuristic evaluation of the app, and a proposal for engaging users in building their own community.

Start with the app: a heuristic evaluation

A design process isn't complete without evaluating what's already there. I reviewed the POPxo mobile app against the rules of thumb shared by Don Norman's principles and Ben Shneiderman's eight golden rules — reducing short-term memory load, matching the system to the real world, striving for consistency — and paired every finding with a recommendation.

Then the community

User-generated content — electronic word of mouth — has a positive effect on perceived credibility and perceived usefulness, and it lowers perceived risk. That was the hypothesis. We tested it against how women in our audience actually behave online, and found that most enjoy conversations with people in a field they care about, almost all use social platforms every day, many are more introverted when expressing themselves, and they look for positive experiences and people worth following.

Aishwarya, 24, newly promoted to business development manager, wants to share her story but can't find a community of shared interests — and feels misunderstood on general social media. Deepti, 29, recently married, misses the conversations she used to have and looks for an idol ‘in the making’, someone closer to her own life than the stars she follows.

The design

We connected the POPxo homepage to a community homepage, with one main call to action — know thy POPxo community — so people understand what they'd get before they're asked to join. Then the how: how the community works, and how it helps the women of our time curate something they love. A presence.

*Originally published on Medium, in two parts.*

Read the full piece

This note is a summary. The full essay — with the research, the sketches and the reasoning — lives on Medium at medium.com/@amitchotia9.

Physics taught me you don't get to call it right until it's proven. Most of what I write is me trying to show the working.