Joyride
Sequoia Capital backed startup Joyride is a live gameshow app that entertains over a million monthly active users.
When
2017 - 2019
Employer
Kiwi Inc
Role
Design Lead
Product Evolution
Originally hired as a consultant to refresh and redesign Joyride, I was quickly offered a full-time position to lead all design efforts. Once I became full-time, I assembled a team of contractors to rebrand the app and redesign some of the features. Soon after the rebranding was complete In early 2018, Joyride pivoted business models to focus on live game shows whilst leveraging existing infrastructure and features intended for the original product. While the redesign did go according to plan, Joyride’s new brand doesn’t quite match our new target demographic after the product pivot. With the product pivot in mind and limited development resources, my team and I have been actively working towards methodically updating the design language without the need for another redesign.
Version 2 - Redesign
2017
What Joyride Was
Joyride was a group video chat app where friends gathered to stay entertained, play games and make new friends.
The Problem
With a successful soft launch, I was tasked with assembling a team of designers to rebranding and redesigning the product. Adhering to an aggressive timeline, my goals were to gather user feedback, rebranded the app, address minor UX issues and redesign the interface.
Conduct User Research & Identify Major UX Issues
Rebrand Joyride
Redesign Interface
Users & Audience
As a social application built around live social video and play, we were focused on a female-driven (but not female-exclusive) 13-17 and 18-25 demographic as core audiences without limiting our ability to draw in males as well for a mass market audience.
Predominantly Female
Middle / High School / College Students
Ages 13-17 and 18-25
V1 User Feedback
Although some of the V1 product flaws were evident to me, I wasn’t the target audience. To accurately asses user paint points, we interviewed and conducted usability tests with 3 Joyride users and 7 non users.
Feedback Summary
Interface busy and confusing to navigate
Reluctance conversing with strangers
Provide significant value or entertainment to encourage friend invites
Rebranding
With a predominantly adolescent female audience, we aimed for a cute and friendly rebrand of Joyride. Working with 3 illustrators, 2 animators and a character designer, we set out to reinvent Joyride’s identity.
Explorations
Augmented Video Filters
To stay competitive with other video chat apps, we created augmented video filters. Through specific voice and movement triggers, users could activate custom video filters. These video filters were intended to enhance the video chat experience while chatting with friends.
Branded Characters
My team and I crafted these 3d characters over many months to create an original video filter experience. Each character had unique characteristics and varied motion sequences.
Character Video Filters
Salt Bae
GIF Thought Bubble
Clapping
Interface Redesign
Aiming to address UX issues with limited development effort, I could only focus on visual refreshes throughout the app.
Redesigned Launchpad
Redesigned Video Chat
Redesigned Video Chat Games
Conclusion
Although the rebrand and redesign went well, the data showed us organic invites were non existent. Retaining users and engaging them on a regular basis became challenging without users building their social graph within the app. Attempting to address this fundamental issue, we released features and updates with little success. After two quarters of consistent updates and an evolving competitor landscape, it became clear that we needed to rethink the product.
Version 3 - Product Pivot
2018
Joyride Now
Joyride is a live game show app, with a growing lineup of interactive and diverse shows. Players can team up with their friends to compete against the community and split real cash prizes!
The Pivot
With increasing competition and little traction, we were forced to pivot the product. Attempting to create a product that would be more shareable while leveraging existing features, we decided to pursue live gameshows as our new product focus. Additionally, our head of product wanted to to create multiple gameshows in an effort to keep users entertained and thwart user churn. One of the biggest challenge during this product pivot were the limitations imposed by the developers. With significant development resources refactoring code and modifying features, the product team was forced to reduce our scope.
Reuse exiting features
Limited UI changes
Gameshow variety
Monetize experience
New Users & Audience
Joyride’s new gameshow focused experience altered our target demographic. Appealing to an older gender neutral demographic, we tried crafting gameshow experiences accordingly. Our new demo is more likely to invite friends and share Joyride for in app currency.
Gender Neutral
Ages 21-35
Adapting Launchpad
As a time saving measure we adapted our launchpad to showcase live and upcoming gameshows instead of chat rooms. A 4th redesigned version of the launchpad is currently being user tested and optimized.
Adapting Video Chat
Since our original product focused on group video chat, we were able to reuse this feature allowing friends to play together within our live gameshows.
Live Gameshows
Originally launching with just one gameshow, Joyride offers a variety of unique interactive gameshow experiences. With the success of our first gameshow “Quizzo,” we decided to create 7 more games offering an array of challenges. Joyride’s diversity of gameshows allowed us to test retention and unique user acquisition strategies.
Conclusion and Current Status
Joyride’s product pivot went well with an increase in organic installs, improvements in user retention and a monetization. Soon after validated the pivot to live gameshows; we focused on polishing user flows and gameshow experiences. After leaving Kiwi in 2019, Joyride has evolved once more to focus on live streaming users gameplay without cash prizes or formal hosts.
