Curio
Activating trust by providing value upfront.
Company
Curio
Role
Principal Product Designer
Team
1 x CPO
1 x Product Manager
1 x UX Researcher
1 x Data Lead
3 x Engineers
Contextual goal
Curio is an audio app that leverages advanced AI and ML models to deliver curated news and recommendations from sources like FT, WIRED, and The Economist. I led the redesign to enhance its growth strategy.
The company’s growth strategy was to increase annual subscribers, as the annual plan offered a free 7-day trial which enabled the company to engage users in that time. The core problem we investigated was a low install to trial rate from the paywall; data showed over 60% of users who installed left this screen, indicating a problem in the conversion funnel. In my role, I set out to understand what a new user would need to commit. Acquisition efforts were wasted, therefore we prioritised finding out why.
The opportunity
Once the problem was identified, we dissected the current paywall and found that users were prompted to subscribe with little context.
From this, we made an early assumption that users were not convinced and therefore hesitant to take action. This step helped the team challenge past decisions and reimagine a new paywall. Based on findings, we identified the objective to help new users build trust by providing value upfront. This was an opportunity to create clarity, sell the free trial and drive annual subscription growth.
Measuring impact
Criteria 1: Reduce bounce rate by -10%
Criteria 2: Increase install to trial by +20%
I felt these metrics were most important to measure for two reasons. First, data showed a large drop-off at a key conversion point. Second, emphasis on the free trial would give the highest chance of driving annual subscriptions. Our tracking for success was based on the number of new users who engaged with the new paywall and decided to start a trial on the annual plan.
Testing new ideas
As we lacked qualitative data on why people didn’t convert, I worked with UX Research to gather some rapid insights.
We ran test sessions with 5 people who hadn’t heard of Curio, to uncover the concerns they had with the existing paywall. Key findings were that users struggled to connect with the audio aspect, didn’t want to commit without trying first and had concerns on how the trial worked.
Creating clarity
Once the insights were synthesised, I facilitated a design sprint to discuss how we could create better clarity upfront for new users.
This included setting expectations for audio USPs and how the trial worked. From this, we generated several ‘how might we’s’ and narrowed down to most optimal bets to ideate from. This approach gave the team high confidence as we felt informed in our decision-making, and were able to think about wins and trade-offs in our concepts.
Learning quickly
Working with a UX Researcher, I generated a hypothesis, delivered prototypes and tested 2 rounds with users who were new to Curio.
Our hypothesis was that selling the benefits of Curio and how it works will convince users to start a trial. I was keen to learn the extent; if users understood what Curio offered and felt clear on expectations, would this create enough trust to commit? On this occasion, we tested hi-fidelity designs as there were key visuals and interactions which a wireframe wouldn’t have been effective.
Acquiring
the right mindset
for an audio product.
- In iteration 1, we designed onboarding screens with lifestyle-led messaging to help people envisage Curio in their routines. Testing found low impact as users couldn’t identify with the product immediately. We also tried a trial timeline, designed to set expectations for trial expiry and when payment would be taken. This idea was well received as users thought it was offered transparency but wasn’t easy to find.
In iteration 2, we decided to explicitly use ‘news’ in the messaging to resonate with our audience. This was supported by previous research that several people mentioned ‘news’ when asked to describe Curio. I also felt we needed to make significant changes to reduce the friction between people who were ready to get started, and those who needed more convincing. From this, I tried an infinite paywall idea and worked with Content to explore showcasing audio teasers at the top-of-funnel. My thinking was to help users build a strong connection with the audio aspect and try the product quickly.
- Iteration 2 saw users respond positively when we incorporated ‘news’, as this term felt familiar with people when they thought about similar products. 70% of users interacted with the audio teasers and felt positive about the tangible value upfront. We also saw repeated success of trial understanding with the timeline, as users felt this was transparent in helping them understand when they’d be charged.
- Top-of-funnel challenges required us to learn at pace until we reached confidence in our solution. The risk of our design approach was testing multiple changes at once and less subscribers due to a less visible pathway to monthly, but we minimised these risks with expendable learning before building it.
Outcomes & impact
Over 1 month, we built and released the paywall redesign on an A/B test against the original.
We rolled the redesign out to 50% of users which gave us measured risk to track direct value rather than usability itself. The infinite paywall outperformed control with +22% increase on install to trial rate which validated our product decisions were well informed and helped the business to grow the annual subscriber base. We initially set an ambitious goal but achieved positive results by going for high-impact change.
The new design also saw a -13% decrease in bounce rate which indicated users stayed on the screen for longer and enabled us to continue to improve our top-of-funnel content. After rolling out, we also saw +6% fewer trial cancellations compared to the control, which could have been due to the expectations set on the new trial timeline. The findings were a significant step for improvement and opened more opportunities for Growth to further understand successes for conversion. Looking back, our experimental approach inspired a culture of learning within the team and empowered us to approach a commercial challenge with a user-first perspective. People place ultimate value on honesty and this was the priority in my design.
In my time with Curio, my contributions helped us achieve;
Editors Choice on the App Store (2022)
App Of The Day (2022)
News Apps We Love (2022)
Featured in the App Store amongst hottest apps in the UK (2022)
