Role
Sole Product Designer
Tools
Pen and paper. Figma.
Timeline
4 months (2023)
Project Overview
vidIQ is a mobile app that helps YouTube creators grow smarter and faster. I designed the coach approach dashboard and the growth plan progress.
Contribution
0-1 iOS App. End-to-end UX and UI. User testing. Design iterations based on feedback.
3.8%
Increase in User Retention
78.8%
Increase in Purchase vs. legacy version
90%of the users provide
positive feedback on Course Map
Problem Context
vidIQ’s mobile experience is feature-rich and data-heavy, which works well for advanced creators but creates friction for beginners. Over 60% of new signups are early-stage YouTube creators with fewer than 100 subscribers, many of whom lack a mental model for analytics and optimization.
For these users, the challenge isn’t access to information, it’s knowing what to do next. After onboarding, beginners often feel overwhelmed by metrics and features, leading to confusion, loss of motivation, and early drop-off.
Solution
To address this, the experience shifts from a data-first dashboard to a coach-led, task-first approach designed to guide beginners through action rather than interpretation.
The Coach approach focuses on:
Clear goal-setting and progress framed around meaningful outcomes, instead of isolated metrics.
Bite-sized learning moments that support action, rather than long-form education.
Daily, contextual tasks that help users build momentum and confidence over time.
This approach reduces cognitive load, reinforces motivation, and supports early habit formation for new creators.
Metrics
Task completion rate, to validate clarity and actionability.
User retention, to assess whether the guided experience supported sustained engagement.
User Persona
Using existing user research from the company, I created a user persona to clarify the goals and pain points of our target users, especially beginner YouTube creators who often feel overwhelmed. This helped guide design decisions and ensure the product met real user needs.
The key insight was that beginners weren’t blocked by lack of features, but by lack of direction and confidence.
They didn’t have a mental model for analytics, and seeing too much data early often created anxiety rather than clarity. The journey map revealed a major drop-off right after onboarding, when users returned to the app but didn’t know what to do next.
This highlighted that motivation and reassurance were more critical than optimization at this stage.
These insights directly informed the shift toward a task-first, coach-led experience with milestone-based progress, designed to build confidence and habit rather than requiring early data interpretation.
“I’m excited to grow my channel, but once I open the app, I’m not sure what to focus on.
There’s so much information that I lose motivation pretty quickly.”
— By vidIQ user, Alice
Design process - V1 Draft
Design process - V2 improvements
Based on 1st explorations, we conducted usability test at usertesting.com. Here are the key decisions based on the feedback:
Progress indicators were always visible in the top bar, which users found visually cluttered and unnecessary when they weren’t actively tracking progress.
→ Progress feedback was simplified and surfaced contextually, allowing users to focus on tasks rather than constantly interpreting metrics.The “What’s next in your plan” section was frequently skipped, as it visually resembled a banner. The label “Check my ideas” felt vague and disconnected from users’ actual progress or next actions.
→ This area was redesigned into clear, task-first guidance that directly connects progress with the next actionable step.Horizontal scrolling felt unintuitive, especially on mobile where users expected a vertical flow.
→ Content was restructured into a vertical layout to improve scanability, reduce interaction friction, and better match users’ mental models.
Key Shifts from V1 to V2
Based on 1st explorations, we conducted usability test at usertesting.com. Here are the key decisions based on the feedback:
Shifted progress from status reporting to goal-oriented framing, helping users understand how far they are from a meaningful outcome rather than interpreting isolated metrics.
Clarified information hierarchy by surfacing the most important goal and next action first, reducing the cognitive effort of prioritization for beginners.
Evolved progress from passive tracking to behavioral feedback, using visual cues and completion signals to reinforce momentum and habit formation.
Final Design - Feature List
Refined feature set based on user needs and design iteration
Goal Tracking
The first tab on the dashboard shows the user’s progress toward the goal set during the onboarding flow.
When clicking ‘View My Progress,’ another page will open with the goal tracker.
The goal could be X subscribers or X views, depending on what the user selected during the onboarding.
Daily Tasks
For a brand-new creator, the first daily task will be 'Starting Your New Channel.'
Normally, we show two daily tasks per day to users who already have their YouTube channels.
After clicking on the tasks and completing them, the user will get to see a checkmark indicating that the tasks have been completed for the day, and they can come back tomorrow for more.
Video Publishing Tracking
As part of the onboarding process, users select their preferred level of commitment (e.g., Goal Commitment Level), and the screens show the UI for users who selected to publish four videos per month.
Users can click on each video icon to see the due date. When they uploaded a video, the corresponding icon will be turned into green with a check mark to show that they’re on track. If they somehow miss the due date, the icon will be red with the X.
Today’s Growth Plan
In Today’s growth plan, the user will find the lessons.
A user can only complete a limited number of lessons per day. They must come back the following day to complete more Lessons.
In the second screen, you can see that this user has completed their three Lessons for today, and must come back tomorrow for more Lessons.
Course Map
Under the video tracking feature, users can also see the course map. It reflects which courses the user has completed already, which course the user is currently suggested to the user, and which courses are available in the future.
The course map allows the user to see what lies ahead and should ideally excite them for the future courses.
Business Impact
90%
of the users
responded positively to the Course Map in usability tests.
78.8%
increase in purchase
Compared with the legacy dashboard, the new dashboard had a 78.8% increase in purchase.
3.8%
retention rate increase
During the A/B testing, the retention rate is up 3.8% compared with the legacy dashboard.
81%
of the users
completed the daily lessons, reflecting a high completion rate and strong engagement.
73%
of the users
of the dashboard are showing high engagement rate with lessons and daily tasks.
