Looking Back At #uxpicks
Hello everyone! I’m Mao, PR and secretary in the MCO (Market Creation Office). For our highly anticipated final newsletter concluding 2022, I would like to brazenly utilize this opportunity to look back and reflect on #uxpicks, which I am in charge of!
Please forgive my selfishness! I would be very happy if you could take a look!😂
日本語の記事はこちらから！
The launch of #uxpicks
Since the launch of #uxpicks in February of this year and our first post on #general on March 17th, more than nine months have passed in the blink of an eye.
It has become a widely recognized Slack channel within beBit, and the number of participants have greatly exceeded our initial expectations with 130 members currently in the channel (as of mid-November, when this article was written).
We grew #uxpicks together with all of you, so I would like to look back at the many hardships and joys that have brought us to this day.
Let’s look back at #uxpicks! I also wrote an installment about how #uxpicks came to be earlier this year, so please take a look if you have the time.
A month of trial and error
We created the Slack channel and started our trial operations on March 2nd.
For some reason, the number of participants increased gradually even though the channel had not been announced. We decided that we had to end our trials and get the channel going, so on March 17th, we made an announcement on #general and began full-scale operations!
However, I recall all of us being very anxious about our weekly meetings, wondering what kind of information would stick with beBit members and whether we would receive harsh feedback such as “Don’t send out such low quality information!” It was a month where we challenged ourselves to try many different things.
All members (Hiro, Eri, Kenny, Mao) posted an article every day as early as possible
Fujii-san would comment on every article and select the three best articles weekly
Fujii-san would choose the top 5 monthly articles from the weekly best 3 and write a summary reflecting on the previous month
Conducted our first survey at the end of March
Set up KPIs (number of participants, number of reactions, number of posts)
Weekly summaries posted on Fridays
Promoted our channel at Fujii-san’s worldview training
Added a link on our company portal
Considered and planned a #uxpicks project for golden week and other holidays
Promoted our channel on our internal radio
In addition to our daily quota, the pressure to find new and useful UX information while being careful not to post the same thing within the team was quite stressful!
Since we did not know which articles were being viewed besides through reactions such as “likes,” we immediately took a survey at the end of March. In order to hear the voices of the beBit members who were reading the articles, we sent out the survey after discussing heavily as to what we should be asked and received 12 responses.
Level up! Trial period begins!
For the results of the survey, we received more positive feedback than we anticipated! It was a moment that reaffirmed that what we were doing was not a mistake. Let’s take a look at a few of the comments we received.
The most useful media for me! I find the weekly best 3 and other posts very useful. Opinion 1) It would be great if there was an opportunity to deepen our thoughts on our in-house radio! Opinion 2) The timing of the posts are random, so I end up clicking the notification but not reading the articles during work. It would be great if there were scheduled posts at 8am or so for people to learn UX prior to work, or at 6pm and weekends to learn UX outside of work. Well, I guess I could just choose when to read the articles myself!
I don’t have the mental or physical capacity to follow every post, but I find interesting information every time I view the channel! It’s hard to get a chance to think and learn about UX with other work in front of me, so I’m very grateful.
As I noted in a previous answer, I really appreciate the experience of being able to easily pick up what interests me! I also enjoy reading Fujii-san’s comments. Thank you for setting this up!
I always look forward to #uxpicks. I am still new to the industry and need a lot of input, so the constant stream of information is very helpful! I’ll definitely continue to check it out!
I tend to slack off on my daily research, so it’s very helpful to have these posts daily in both quantity and quality!
A huge sigh of relief! From the bottom of my heart, thank you to those who answered the survey!
One thing I learned from being on the side sending out the survey is that surveys are not easy. I had no experience creating surveys, but I have come to learn that it takes a lot of effort to create a survey, even if it takes only a few minutes to respond. How will we get people to respond? What kind of data do we need to collect? So much to think about.
Afterwards, with #uxpicks leveled up, a three month trial period took place. We…
Changed the frequency of posts from everyone every day to two posts per day (Mao posts 4 times per week, while Hiro, Eri, and Kenny post twice per week)
Changed the posting time every week (9am・4pm／11am・6pm)
Changed the reactions every two weeks (Read, like, etc.)
Implemented “Bitly” to see click counts
Tried new ideas to increase reaction numbers
Tested to see if thumbnails make the viewing experience better
Considered measures such as holding events and gatherings, collaborating with other departments, selecting professional pickers, etc.
Based on the survey, we continued to examine the measures we could take and decided in June that we would post at 10am and 3pm - our current style! 👏
I was happy that through many trials we were able to improve #uxpicks as a channel! But then, Fujii-san became even busier. The weekly best 3 and monthly top 5 comments gradually faded out, and the #uxpicks team became anxious!
During these struggles, we took another survey in June.
This time, we got 21 responses! A huge increase from the previous 12!
Again, we received many positive comments. We are very grateful to all of you supporting #uxpicks and responding to our surveys! Here are a few comments we received.
While I haven’t read every article, I’m very thankful! As the number of employees increases, catching up on the latest information has become limited to people with similar interests or departments. It is interesting to see how the articles are chosen and to know what other people in your company are interested in. Personally, it takes a lot of courage to comment, so the “I read it” reactions are very helpful!
I'm not completely caught up so I am not asking for an increase in the number of articles, but I would love to see posts about books and services as well.
I haven’t been able to read or react to every article, but this channel definitely makes me feel that beBit is a UX company! Thanks you!
While as a professional I should be researching myself, I am very thankful for this page covering topics that I am unable to find myself.
I only read the articles that interest me, but I’m grateful to see the posts because I still lack knowledge in UX. I’m not sure about what kind of sites I should use to gather information either, so it’s very useful!
Thanks to everyone for their comments and feedback.
Based on our survey results from March and June, we found that most people are not able to catch up on reading the two posts per day. On the other hand, there were a few individuals who kept up with our posts, so we decided to continue posting twice per day and started posting weekly summaries on Fridays for those who are not able to keep up.
Level Up! New challenges
As July arrived, #uxpicks reached 100 members!
We moved forward to the next phase of the project, which was to resolve the issue of Fujii-san being unable to react to our posts. We…
Gave up on weekly best 3 posts because of limited human power, divided the monthly top 5 by number of clicks and reactions, and I, Mao, started writing the monthly summaries
Reexamined our KPI
Proposed to operate a “double loop” system with a premium version
Discussed whether #uxpicks could be shared externally
Started operating “Request Picks” to help with research for projects
Starting July, Fujii-san’s comments were completely gone and I, Mao, started writing the monthly review posts. I never imagined myself having to struggle like this every month when I started this project…
In the beginning, our KPI was the number of members, reactions, and posts.
We were able to view the number of clicks through Bitly, but since our KPI was set to reactions, we spent many days wondering why no one would react to our posts🙄 We realized that thinking solely about the numbers was not a good mindset, so we decided to think about it in a more laid back manner🤗
In August, discussions about whether or not we should make #uxpicks content available to the public began.
Additionally, we had a request from Sakamaki-san in the Shanghai office about researching English articles, and thus the two week trial period for “Request Picks” began.
We established rules in case we had any future requests and created a survey for before and after conducting research, quickly giving shape to something that started off from a simple request.
As the request this time around was for English articles, we had Kenny, who is in charge of the English articles in our daily operations, research for “Request Picks.” The articles were viewable by not just Sakamaki-san, but by everyone who was in the #uxpicks channel as well. We also listed up articles that were not posted to the channel and delivered them directly to Sakamaki-san as well.
Level Up! Delivering content externally
In October, our dream finally came true!
Through a “Special edition” of Fujii-san’s newsletter, we were able to deliver content from #uxpicks to external individuals as well! Fujii-san would pick interesting articles from #uxpicks and deliver them with his own comments about the articles as well.
While it was initially called a “Special edition,” it seemed the content was quite popular. Recently, there are times when #uxpicks articles are sent out a few weeks in a row! The #uxpicks team secretly talks about how it’s more of a main content than a special edition now😂😂
In November, content from #uxpicks started being posted to a members only page for the UXIA (UX Intelligence Association) , which Fujii-san is the Director of. Access to the website doubled, making it quite a success!
It was the moment that made our daily struggles to find and post content well worth it! This content was made possible by everyone who is in the channel, everyone who reacts and comments on our posts, and everyone who answers our surveys. We were able to grow this much thanks to all of you✨
Starting December 29th, #uxpicks will be taking a year end break. From March 2nd to December 29th, there were a total of 471 posts on this channel.
I’m writing this article in mid November, so soon, we will be sending out our final survey for the year and preparing for the upcoming one.
The #uxpicks team will work hard to make our content even more exciting, so we hope that you will continue to tune in.
Thank you very much for your support this year. We hope you have a happy holiday season!
See you next year!