Ipsos iSay Survey Dashboard

Evaluating and Enhancing the digital survey experience.
Project Summary

Collaborative research and user-centered design to enhance Ipsos iSay's survey & rewards dashboard.

My Role
UX Team Lead

As a Graduate student, I directed a team of 8 UX students in research and design efforts to enhance the digital survey experience, while liasing with industry professionals to align design goals with business objectives.

Timeline

3 Months - January, 2024.

Updated Ipsos iSay Web Interface
Ipsos LogoExperience Studios Logo

This project was a collaboration between Ipsos and Experience Studios at Purdue University.

Ipsos Logo
Who is Ipsos?

Ipsos is a Global Market Research firm based out of Paris, France. The company has various wings ranging from Strategy3 to UX.

Ipsos iSay Logo
What is Ipsos iSay?

Ipsos iSay is a survey-for-rewards platform where users can sign up to answer various studies and earn points redeemable for gift cards.

Project Result

The project resulted in the design recommendations for the Survey and Rewards Dashboard for the iSay website.

See in detail
Meet the Team

A cross-functional group of students...

The team!

A team of 8 UX students, from Freshman to Senior year and Graduate level, we accomplished this project through scaffold learning and collaborating with the project sponsors and mentors.

...and an expert group of mentors and sponsors.

Associate Professor, Purdue University.

Teaching Assistant, Purdue University.

Global CTO, Ipsos.

EVP of UX & Human Factors,
Ipsos.

Head of Access, Ipsos.

Project Kick-Off
01
Kick-off meeting with sponsors

Met with sponsors to understand their needs from the project.

02
Assess the team's bandwidth

Scoped out the student team's bandwidth considering the limited time to execute this project.

03
Draw a Project Plan

Proposed an estimated project plan and deliverables considering bandwidth.

The sponsors needed an evaluation of their platform, originally with recommendations to implement AI agents within the web platform as well as decrease the drop off rate of survey takers.
The Project Plan

A structure to execute the project efficiently.

What?

A high level methodological approach towards identifying the problem and addressing it with appropriate solutions.

Competitive Analysis

Studying & Evaluating the Competitors.

What?

The initial task for this project was to understand the survey-for-rewards space to create a comprehensive competitor report.

Who?

A range of online survey-for-rewards platforms identified in collaboration with the sponsors.

How?

By creating a standardized evaluation metric and using it to evaluate the web platforms of all competitors.

01
Landing Page

Elements promoting sign-up and any other unique features.

02
Onboarding/Sign Up

Ease of Signing-up or Logging-in and points of friction in the sign-up flow.

03
Survey Dashboard

Elements making the survey experience enjoyable or unpleasant. Also assess the ease of redeeming rewards.

Key Insight: Getting users to the surveys in the least number of clicks possible.

Also listed below are a few insights synthesized from the bank of data collected through assessing 12 competitor platforms.

Sign-up ASAP to 'Earn Rewards' & 'Make Money'

Communicating the urgency of signing up and the value of 'survey-for-rewards' platforms to users.

A Clean Interface & Simple Information

Using a simple design language to enable the user to focus on earning rewards.

Survey Filtering & Feed Customization

Enhances the perception of 'control' the user feels while using these platforms.

Accessibility

Employing ADA compliant interfaces and accessibility tools to enhance usability for a wider audience.

An observed pattern in competitors: The user-flow.

Almost all the platforms followed a general user flow from the point a user lands on the website to the point they start giving a survey to earn rewards.

We hence designed an initial user flow using all the information collected through the competitor analysis.

The user flow followed by many survey websites

Disclaimer

The evaluation of the Ipsos iSay platform shown here was conducted in February 2024. The subsequent evaluation hence shows the version of the website active in February 2024. The website has since been updated to a newer version.

Evaluation & Insights

Understanding and Evaluating Ipsos iSay.

How?

Evaluating Ipsos iSay using Heuristic Evaluation and User Interviews to identify gaps in its experience.

The Evaluation Process
01
Heuristic Evaluation

A structured evaluation approach conducted for 2 major sections of the Ipsos iSay platform - Landing Page & Survey Dashboard.

02
User Interviews & Usability Tests

Structured & unstructured User interviews over 2 rounds to understand a potential user's motives & thoughts while answering an online survey.

03
Synthesizing Evaluation Insights

Comparing and synthesizing insights from all the methods used to evaluate the platform to create design recommendations.

Heuristic Evaluation: Summary of Insights.

A brief summary of insights synthesized from the detailed heuristic analysis for the Landing Page & Survey Dashboard.

Visibility of System Status
Lack of information about survey contents.
User Control & Freedom
No way to navigate forward, backward or quit a survey once started other than to close web browser window.
Consistency & Standards
Different surveys have different UI elements, showing a fair amount of inconsistency in the design system.
Error Messaging
Unclear error messages not indicating why the user is 'denied access' to the survey.
Confusion in Tab Menu & Items
This section went un-recognized as a tab menu until the point an evaluator wanted to assess the rewards tab. This tab grouping is not evident to new users. Furthermore, no hover states make it even more difficult to recognize each field as a clickable entity.
Survey item list is monotonous
Surveys/studies grouped in a list format affords users to interact with the first item in list or the survey with the least time required.
Survey details lack information
The listing fails to provide information generally expected by the user, such as the genre/type of survey. Furthermore, it also lacks the information of the 'type' of study as not every 'study' is formatted as a survey. Some studies are also polls, product testing or retail purchase experiences.
Inconsistencies in terminology
Users fail to recognize that 'survey' and 'study' mean the same entity in context to the survey dashboard. This also encompasses another concept of 'surveys' being a sub-set of 'studies'. However, this inconsistency in labeling causes confusion.
User Interviews & Usability Tests: Summary of Insights.

The user interviews primarily helped the team identify gaps and issues in the survey answering flow.

Who is the User?

This was one of the most difficult questions to answer during the project given that survey platforms would be used by a range of individuals. However, by identifying the most accessible demographic and confirming the business relevance with the project sponsors, we concluded on one demographic.

Students, Freelancers & Part-Time Workers
21-30 Year Olds
All Genders
Urban & Metropolitan areas
Students, Freelancers & Part time workers
Earn a little extra income which enables and satisfies the 'impulse buy' behavior.
Have extremely limited time within the daily schedule.
Stay engaged with the latest trends, brands and products.
Constantly active on social media, extremely comfortable in the digital space.
The Survey Flow

Answering a survey for the user followed the below structure but lacked a significant amount of user notification which led to severe confusion among users.

The Survey flow for Ipsos iSay's website
Users un-aware about Screening Questions
Users were not clearly informed that they are entering a screening or profiling phase before the actual survey.
Misconception & Misaligned expectations
Users perceived the screening questions as the survey itself expecting full rewards.
User Distrust due to in-eligibility in survey
Users became distrustful when they were deemed in-eligible for a survey and received a minimum reward.
Transparency & Communication regarding eligibility criteria
Users desire clear communication about the survey phases and specifically eligibility criteria.
Inconsistent progress indication for the survey
The lack of consistent progress tracking during surveys leads to user frustration.
Impact on survey completion rates
Confusion throughout survey flow results in users quitting before completing the survey.
Grounding Insights in Literature

Insights were grounded in relevant literature to provide a deeper understanding of the issues and guide us toward potential solutions.

Interface & Interaction
To tackle the confusing interfaces & flows for surveys.
Gamification of Surveys
To explore an increased level of engagement in surveys.
Attention & Retention Spans
To tackle the high drop-off rates during srveys
Design

Exploring & Ideating Design Recommendations

How?

By following design sprints increasing in fidelity, we arrived to designing a survey dashboard which satisfied the design & business requirments.

Concluding Research: Defining Design Directions

Collaborating with the sponsors to define the direction of design through the research insights identified.

Design for Clarity of Communication
Implement clear messaging about survey phases to avoid confusion.
Provide clear information about survey type, duration, and expected rewards.
Use consistent copy throughout the platform.
Simplicity in Interface
Adopt minimalism to enable users to focus on surveys.
Simplify survey navigation to reduce cognitive load.
Minimize unnecessary information & visual clutter.
Introduce Gamification to Enhance Engagement
Implement Leaderboards to increase competition & engagement.
Offer Badges & Virtual rewards for survey completion.
Use Scenario based questions to make surveys more engaging.
Easy Access to Rewards
Clearly communicate reward structures & eligibility.
Streamline reward redemption process.
Provide regular feedback on user progress toward rewards.
Finalizing High-Fidelity Design sprints

We finalized focusing on the Survey Dashboard for the final design & requirements based on the business requirements and limited timeline.

Solution

Simplified Survey & Rewards Dashboard.

The Final Design Recommendations

The proposed design was geared towards simplifying the survey dashboard, along with a few supporting recommendations regarding a more informed survey for a user.

The Survey Dashboard on Web

A cleaner dashboard, designed with intent towards focusing the user towards taking more surveys.

The final solution
Easing the user's access to rewards: Streamlined dashboard with a focus on Studies & Rewards.

By dividing the dashboard into focused sections, we enable the user to quickly transition earned rewards to redemption - of course with appropriate user notification to tackle user confusion.

Personalized Gamification towards Cashing out.

Incentivizes users to return to the platform to redeem points in the form of real money instead of gift-cards.

Tackling Choice-Paralysis by limiting surveys available.

To get the user to begin a survey as soon as possible, the dashboard shows a limited amount of surveys available to not let the user fall into a loop of choice and reduce the cognitive load caused by decision making.

Study Card Semantics

A range of information is provided on the study card to give further context to the user as well as support business needs.

Study Type
Tackles the various types of studies (Surveys, Product Testing, Polling, etc), further enabling back-end organization for business needs.
Study Title
A question or statement to increase the relatability of the study to the user through UX copy, which also serves the purpose of pre-emptive filtering of survey candidates.
Study Tags
To provide further context to users as well as support back-end data organization.
The Business Impact

Although we concluded the project, there were still aspects which needed to be tended to. This section covers all the business impacts of our design decision.

Enhanced Data Quality
By introducing features such as Study Titles and tags, it enables pre-emptive survey candidate filtering leading to relevant candidates answering surveys meant for them.
Increased Back-End Data Management
Addition of the features also means there will be more information to process and organize, potentially leading to increased resources to manage this product.
Project Closeout

Reflecting beyond the classroom.

Projects are not always work, work & work!

It is also about support, collaborative learning and a little bit of fun!

A quick testimonial
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