Dacon is an online data science competition platform in Korea. Users join to participate in challenges sponsored or requested by Korean government or companies.
Task
Increase community engagement and user retention
Background
Scaling up
When I joined Dacon, the team was in the stage of scaling up; from a hackathon service, to an education platform.
To accomplish this, we needed to attract new users and enhance the retention rate of existing users. We conducted user research to clarify the problems and areas for improvement. With the findings from the user research, we then
Research
We took three steps in our research process; Defining user groups, asking our users and drawing insights.
Research
>
Define
Navigation path
analysis
By analyzing user navigation patterns, I classified them into two categories: objective-driven and exploratory users.
Research
>
Ask
Think Aloud Protocol
We brought users in to our office to observe what they try to do on our product, and what their pain points were while doing so.
Research
>
Insights
Exploratory users ↑
Service revisit ↑
By analyzing user navigation patterns, I classified them into two categories: objective-driven and exploratory users.
Web
Improved main page
With findings from user research, the main screen was restructured to broaden the navigation path for users. Contents were redesigned with a dashboard layout, allowing access to competitions, education, and community contents.
Before (2020)
After (2021~)
Reduced emphasis
on hackathon
By shifting from list to card design for displaying hackathons, I minimized unnecessary whitespace and created more room for content. I also streamlined elements considering responsiveness.
Popular features added
to the main page
Realizing the frequent use of the leaderboard, I made the top 5 leaderboard results directly visible on the main page.
Educational content
easier to access
While hackathons are the main service, I placed educational content as a secondary priority to lower the entry barrier for new AI users and to expand business areas.
Improved content
accessibility
Since winning strategies and codes from hackathons were often shared in code-sharing and discussion forums, I highlighted popular posts from these boards on the main page.
Gamification
New ranking system
The existing ranking system, with its disconnected design from the platform, was providing an inconsistent user experience, and the tier titles were not well-established. Through surveys of users and employees, I designed a more intuitive tier system.
As a strategy to invigorate the community, rankings for code sharing and discussion were added. After implementation, an increase in users posting and participation was observed.
Before
After
Takeaways
The importance of data-driven decision making
Dacon was the first start-up that I took a role of a UX/UI designer. It was also the first project where I integrated both quantitative and qualitative data. I used Google Analytics to group users based on their behavior and employed the think-aloud protocol to understand users' objectives in the service. With successful outcomes of the redesign, I learned the significance of data-driven decision making in design.