Product Design 101 — Canva
Improving the sign-up conversions for Canva
Case: Suggest improvements to improve the new user sign-up conversion at Canva by enhancing the landing or affiliated pages.
Let’s start by understanding the user(s) and their behaviors/needs. One key compartmentalization we can do immediately is limiting our personas to new users since we are talking about conversion. As a new user exploring Canva, the expectation is simple — realizing how well Canva can help you design.
User Requirements/Pain Points:
1. I want the landing page to showcase featured works and credentials for each category displayed, so I can trust the platform’s quality and capabilities before signing up.
2. As a user, I want a constantly existing textual search bar, so that I can access search functionality. I feel the need to click to open the search bar to be redundant.
3. As a user, realizing that most of the templates that I like are premium. I need some help early on to explore a few premium templates. Don’t bombard me with the Canva Pro pop-ups already!
4. As a user, I am still allowed to use the free templates without necessarily signing up. I do not feel the need to sign up to explore around.
We will prioritize need #4 as it directly impacts the conversion flow.
Feature Design
Right then, let's see how we can enable the user to sign up and still allow them enough freedom to explore and play around.
Feature 1: Make signing up mandatory to even explore any of the tools or templates. No account = No exploration.
Feature 2: The user can explore and design without an account but any sharing or downloading needs signing up.
Feature 3: The user is allowed 2–4 free templates to use and explore even without an account but needs to sign up to explore the full range of free templates.
Hmm, interesting options so now we prioritize. We explore two ways to prioritize here viz., a. 2x2 for impact vs effort and RICE to ensure the hypothesis we build using one is validated by the other.
Prioritization
Prioritization in real life is often backed by data. So in case you’re interviewing, you can go ahead and clarify if any such data is available or go ahead with using your intuition. And it is safe to made intelligent assumptions in such cases and backing them up with rationale.
Feature Description
Right then, we have decided to limit the exploration to 2–4 free templates and keep the rest locked. That means any new explorer will be nudged towards signing up to unlock the rest. Let’s discuss this gamified approach in a bit more detail using some wireframes.
- The locked template screen
2. Sign up window on clicking any of the locked templates
Metrics
We should look back at what we started with. The idea was to increase the conversion rate for Canva. But what are other key metrics that help derive track of our feature’s progress?
- Conversion
a. Conversion Rate
b. Increase in # of new users - Feature Tracking
a. Numbers of sign-ups as a result of unlocking
b. Churn Rate from the sign-up window
Summary
Well, that was some case! So, we began with understanding the objective and the problem statement of boosting sign-up conversions for Canva. We looked at new users as the target segment and understood underlying needs. We proceeded with limiting access to all free templates while allowing 2–4 free templates available. It helped us ensure that we nudge a new user towards the direction of making an account and finally, some metrics to get a better picture.
