Android Developers Newsletter

Problem framing

The newsletter page of Android Developers platform receives only 5% of total landing page traffic.
➊ How might we increase Newsletter subscriptions?
➋ How might we bring more traffic to Newsletter and enhance discoverability?

Pain points

So we took a deeper look into this topic and tried to check some of the holes. Here is the current experience based on the navigation through the Newsletter pages, and the main experience issues that stem out of it:

1 News page

No CTA for the DAC newsletter page on top o the newsletter page. The only way to access the newsletter is from a button at the bottom of the page. That means that the user needs to scroll down through the entire page to find it.

2 Newsletter page

No direct Subscribe CTA on the Newsletter page. The subscribe button is subtle and leads only to the bottom of the page where the subscription form is, with a scroll down animation.

3 Subscription form

The newsletter form itself has a non prominent visually design, that is being missed easily from some users.

Research process

1. Hypothesis mapping process

We started by running a big X-Functional workshop. We identified the opportunities and narrowed down the most prominent ideas based on the potential that each idea could have for the Newsletter traffic and the effort for Engineering implementation.

Some of the opportunities we defined:

• Create trust to users

• Relevant e-mail articles for the subscribers

• Homepage promotional material through hero and featured cards

• Implementation of engaging visual and illustrative assets
  

After the workshop I used some of the findings to align them with the fundamental vision of the Android Devs Marketing plan; create the world’s best developer platform. I used the golden circle rule involving our outcomes, our main purpose and the important in-between step; the processes we will follow.

2. User interviews and focus groups

In order to gain some insights I start observing how engineers navigate in DAC pages so as to subscribe to the newsletter. I also asked 35 engineers questions about newsletters, why they subscribe and what they like about them.

As an example of this research, this is the outcome of the question ‘In your opinion, what is the main reason that prevents a potential user from subscribing to a newsletter?’ :

3. Competitor analysis

As a part of the desk research, I also did a competitor analysis, collecting both the best examples and the go-to platforms of the interview participants.

Home page

⮕ solution: Add a newsletter featured card / CTA since it will:

• be a distinct call to an engaging call to action right after the hero section

• inform users about the DAC newsletter

• offer the ability to sign up directly via e-mail subscription on the main Newsletter page

Newsletter page

⮕ solution: More prominent hero and CTA

• placement in an apparent location on the page

• easy and straightforward

• more engaging, playful UI

• direct Sign-up button, instead of the previous scroll-to-bottom CTA which led the user to a subscription form at the bottom of the page

• provides reasons / motivates to subscribe (eg. no spam)  

Subscription form

⮕ solution : Separated Newsletter page and simpler content

• Standalone page, open-in-new-tab page

• Not too many personal details or complex (as this could disengage a potential user from subscribing)

• Clean design for better navigation

• Avoid unambiguous questions