Becoming the Original
in Design
Borrys Hasian / @borryshasian / borrys.com
Head of UX & Design, Rakuten Viki

orig*i*nal, n A thing of singular or unique
character; a person who is different from other
people in an appealing or interesting way; a
person of fresh initiative or inventive capacity.
Source: The Originals by Adam Grant

Two Routes to Achievement
Conformity
Originality
Following the crowd,
conventional path.
Supporting status quo.
Take the path less
travelled, initially against
the grain but eventually
makes things better.

1
Challenge the Default

Viki navigation bar before March 2015

The improved design. We cut down 67% of the items.
Replaced some landing pages with an Explore Page and
streamlined the content discovery flow.

32% 69%
An average conversion to the video pages.
115%
An average increase in conversion to the video pages.
Old version Proposed version
The results

2
Interact More with the
Users

Remote usability testing with
an existing user
Usability testing on the
mobile app with a
potential user
Usability testing
with random user

Episodes selection on a particular show
What we thought was better for
our users: a simpler episode list.
What users need: episode
thumbnail to get a feel before
deciding to watch the show.

How do users rate shows?
Our decision to use 1-10 scaleOne of the user research methods to
find out how

3
Collaborate

Three factors to balance
in innovation
Source: Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley

An engineer pasted this on my monitor

Sketchstorming with the engineers, product manager,
researcher, and designers

Defining Viki brand experience. From SF to SG office.

The executives
Product managers
Designers
Engineers
Users
The improved homepage, launched in Nov 2015
9.6%
People who navigate from the home
page to the video page

4
Speed Matters

Image source: Google Design Sprint
2-5 days of design sprint.

5
Be Better. Don't just use
canned solutions.

Watch indicator. What others are doing (long bar) vs Viki
(time left + simple pie icon).

Be Original and change
things.
Stay in touch Borrys Hasian / @borryshasian / borrys.com