Creativo
Case Study
Go behind the scenes of Creativo, the custom application from Promedia Fire where users can use presets and design templates to create custom graphics and videos for their churches and non-profits.
Mission
The mission with Creativo was essentially to create an app that allows users to Create On The Go with a digital toolbox to customize their graphics, videos, or messages and even schedule them on their preferred dates. But the vision didn't start out that way.
Vision
The original plan for Creativo was to create a service where smaller churches and non profits can utilize graphics made by a part of the ProMedia Fire design team but at more affordable rates. This vision evolved over the course of a year and eventually changed it's overall purpose, but the end goal is similar to the original vision. Let's explore...
Problem
Promedia Fire, among others, is one of the pioneers in the church digital domain, providing professional faith based graphic content all over the world. The problem is that it comes at a pretty hefty price, and most start up or small churches can't afford to stay afloat during the pandemic, much less pay a full on digital agency to create all of their online content on a weekly basis.
Goal
To create a low-cost option that opens the Pro MediaFire model to churches and nonprofits that would usually be priced-out of getting custom graphics.
Creativo will have templated graphics and videos available to users for a flat monthly fee. Users will be able to schedule their social media posts through a built-in scheduler that integrates with Facebook and Instagram. Creativo will also include a photo editor that will allow customers to make minor edits to uploaded or downloaded graphics. All this will be available either through our webpage or our custom application.
My Role
When I was hired at Promedia Fire, I was hired to manage the video/motion graphics team and also produce videos and animations for our clients. One of the skills that I possessed though was my knowledge of UX/UI design since I had previously freelanced on several UX designs prior to joining.
The CEO thought this would be useful for Creativo and I became one of the lead designers of the application layout, as well as manage the video content side of things and speak into the branding. I also lead the research portion of it along with a few others.
Initial meetings started taking place on October of 2020 shortly after I joined the company. Our CEO Clint came to a small team of us with the concept and vision behind the application. He mentioned the need for it and wanted to create something that can really create an impact in the digital space.
Amongst the first few meetings we discussed the name of the application. Some of them were Sunday Planner, Church On The Go, ProCreative etc. But nothing was really resonating. I suggested maybe something a bit more universal and maybe worldwide.
We then started discussing our demographic and realized we create for a lot churches in third world countries and entertained the company name in a different language.
The CEO definitely wanted to use the term "Creative" somewhere in the name so I translated it to spanish and thus Creativo was born.
We also explored the possibilities of the application and pricing. After various meetings we went ahead
and landed on some prices were comfortable with as well as some packaged and subscription plans
explained later in this Case Study.
Ideation
CREATIVO
So we had to tackle two major designs for Creativo. First was the website where we would advertise the App and also create some explainer videos, walkthroughs and tutorials. We then had to create the layout of the application itself and how each page would lead into the next on both Web and Mobile platforms.
We started tackling both simultaneously with the Website being the main priority which would lay the ground work for the application design. We also had some different designers in the team come up with different color schemes and ideas.
Design Timeline
Creativo Wireframes
Above you can check out some of the early sketch ideas that the team and I came up with when brainstorming the heart of Creativo.
Although we had come up with a basic idea for the website layout, we hadn't yet come up with the overall style and branding guide for Creativo. I knew this would be a critical process because this would completely affect the look of the application and the CEO would have to sign off of on this.
I brainstormed with the team and thought it would be a great idea for all of us to create some website design mock ups. I also thought about getting the developers involved early on because they could also help the team determine what would make more sense to build out and realistic given our budget and constraints.
Nailing the Aesthetic
Designing the Application
Once we had an idea of the color schemes from the mock ups, I decided to put my motion design skills to use and create a landing page for when users first open the application on their phones. I went through several iterations of how we would transitions with colors but at the time we settled with orange, yellow and white.
We wanted to go with a dark theme but still maintain that orange and white branding that was prominent throughout the rest of the process.
XD APP DESIGNS
Although I work (and favor) Figma as my main design application, the rest of the team was more familiar with Adobe XD and we had the top tier adobe subscription plan with the company, so we ultimately decided to design the rest of the application in Adobe XD to then hand off to the Dev team. I attached a lot of the initial design concepts here with a brief description of it's role within the application.
I also attached our component library in both light and dark themes so the user can ultimately choose which mode they prefer.
Prototype and Testing
After initial concepts were approved, we went ahead and met with our lead developer Salah to see if he can put together a more fleshed out demo of the application as oppose to the prototype I created which was in a more basic form with minimal action. This would also give us a head start on the development on the app and also test out whether features such as the scheduler and social media connections could be useful in the long run.
This process took a bit but at a certain point we were ready to take this to user testing. To the left you can quickly view what the journey for the test should look like. The first video demonstrates the editing process while the second one showcases the posting and scheduling process
So when the high fidelity prototype was ready, we needed to select a couple of test users to track their journey.
While the Social Media Manager pulled together the users, I went ahead and created the 2 main User Personas gathered from the pool of users she put together. Below you can check out some of the research performed with the personas as well as their Journey maps when they tested the prototype.
USER PERSONAS
Bio
Sean loves being a husband to his beautiful wife, Julie, and a father to his three awesome kids Jude, Nash, and Eliza. He enjoys all things basketball, discussing theology, and binge-watching Netflix. Sean is also fond of food, fun, and friends (preferably with food and fun involved…did I mention food and fun?!).
Sean joined the team at Brookswood Church in June 2017 and is honored to serve as the Associate Pastor of Discipleship and Children’s Ministry. Sean’s belief, that all people matter to God, drives his desire to create biblically faithful churches that are on mission to reach people with the love of God and the good news.
Sean
Usability Testing
Associate Pastor of Discipleship and Children's Ministry
Needs and Goals
Habits and Motivations
Challenges
Explore options that will assist Sean in creating these assets without having to work 60 hour weeks just to make ends meet and still provide a decent experience for his church goers.
Since the pandemic, the staff of the church had to downsize considerably and that included a lot of the media, which left the pastor with little to no resources when it came to the weekend graphics and videos.
Every weekend Sean has to lead the children's live services. These services involve alot of media and vibrant/energetic graphics and videos to keep the kids engaged and motivated. Although he is very familiar with social media, he simply doesn't have time to run the children's social channel and maintain their online presence.
Diane
Bio
Diane Baldwin is a Pastor and Head of Staff at Beulah Presbyterian Church based in Louisville, Kentucky. Diane received a BA degree from University of Texas at Arlington. Diane loves to spend her free time with her family and helping out with her beloved grandchildren as well.
She was assigned Head of Staff at Beulah when she first joined the ministry and has had a long and successful career and ministry helping many come to Christ during her time there and also counseling many marriages, families and even those with other personal issues. She believes there is good in everyone and can see the light of God in them, she just tries to help them see it for themselves.
Pastor and Head
of Staff
Needs and Goals
Habits and Motivations
Challenges
In this new world of remote and hybrid solutions, she realized she needs help establishing a social presence, but not being technically savvy she also realizes she needs help and needs help to maintain their content online and also provide help in house at a reasonable cost.
The pandemic created hardships on many fronts for Diane but one of the biggest challenges was laying off some of her staff and even some of the creatives which handled a lot of their in house graphics and advertisements.
Diane loves her ministry and helping others, she wants to keep seeing her church grow and help others not only locally, but all around the world.
Legal Challenges
One of the unforeseen challenges we faced was when one of our account executives brought the use of stock images or videos to repurpose through Creativo.
This sent us down a rabbit hole that would take weeks to figure out. After counseling from lawyers and others we realized that this would be a huge hurdle in the process and needed to come up with a solution or else Creativo would never see the light of day.
After a few weeks of brainstorming we landed on the fact that any images or assets we use would have to be royalty free, from a royalty website and that we would have to create from scratch as much as possible.
This would require more man power, therefore we needed to hire additional personnel to create more Creativo Content for the users to have the necessary design options.
This would also prevent sites like Adobe Stock, Shutterstock or any of those sites to block our content or fine use for repurposing any of their assets.
Marketing Plan
We then needed a marketing plan. Below is the marketing plan copy our Social Media Expert drafted which would help us further explain our terms and conditions after months of going back in forth on this matter.
"Creativo will be offering a 10-business day free trial to interested customers. Only a section of graphics/vides will be available for download with a max of seven (11) downloads per trial period. After the trail period the customer will roll-over automatically to a full membership (month-to-month) that gives them access to the full site. There is a strict no refund policy so if a client forgets to cancel during their trial they can cancel for the following month. Yearly contracts (for the discount) can cancel at any time but will take effect at the renewal period. They would have access to the app until renewal then it would be canceled automatically (if they canceled during the year). Monthly downloads need to be capped at 32 graphics so no one can abuse the system.
To increase value for the soft launch, we will be including a “boot camp,” for clients in the trial period. The bootcamp will be for 10 days (MWF) that will have speakers and topics leading up to the offer to be unveiled at the end of the final bootcamp meeting."
Soft Launch and Streaming Event
After a few weeks of promotion, we went ahead and started planning for the streaming event (soft launch) which we dubbed the "Creativo Conference" where we eventually invited speakers such as Bob Goff, Nona Jones, Carry Neiuhof etc. and took questions from over 100+ members that tuned in through Facebook and Zoom.
We even gave a discount code at the event for users who wanted to sign up for a subscription and gave them early access through Google Play and the Appstore.
FAQ
After extensive feedback from the soft launch event, we kept stumbling upon some of the same questions asked by the users. This was incredibly helpful because it allowed us to then come up with some solutions and then post them on the actual site/app so other users can get the answers much quicker. It's an ever expanding section of the site I know we will constantly have to update but we found a good starting point with the questions to the right. To see the rest of the questions/answers plus more updated ones please visit the Creativo website or application.
Sign Up Errors
Even though the launch of the event was considered successful and users were generally happy, we had some issues where they couldn't sign up. In fact the number of users trying to sign up and couldn't was so high that we had to spend an evening with the developers to figure out a solution. This was purely back end and out of my scope of skills but we eventually were able to resolve the issues and users were then able to try out the application.
Where is Creativo today?
Creativo is alive and well! Though since we only launched back in late September/early October, we have had a lot of great feedback and the team hosts a weekly meeting called "Digital Growth Accelerators" where we bring users like Sean and Diane up to speed on social trends, media trends, and tips on how to use Creativo to it's fullest. We also open up the floor for feedback to see what new features we can bring to the application. This also lead to us rethinking our slogan "Go Beyond Sunday" and then after some feedback revamped it to "Create on the Go" which our users felt resonated with them better.
In any case, try it out for yourself today using the link below and start getting Creativo.
