POETRY ZOO
a new way of creating, sharing, & reading poetry
PROJECT INFORMATION
type of work: user & market research | thinking sessions
client: PoetryZoo
employer: Moving Targets
industry: a digital platform for poetry
dates: Feb - July 2012
extent of the project: one month full-time for research & reporting + thinking sessions
CONTEXT | BRIEF
PoetryZoo keepers, Gillian K Ferguson and Richard Saville-Smith, had identified a gap in the market for a user-friendly online platform for poetry that harnessed the advantages of mobile technologies.
I worked with PoetryZoo when it was a start-up. They were in the process of securing funding and had started conversations with Primate, the company that would be developing the platform.
OUTPUTS | IMPACT
User and market research
The research focused on understanding why people wrote, read, and shared poetry online, and how they would like to do so, as well as how users categorised their writings and built social relationships through poetry. Analysis of existing platforms also served to identify gaps in the market, and the report offered strategies for harnessing the weaknesses of other platforms and turning them into Poetry Zoo’s unique selling points.
The report offered a comprehensive account of user needs and desires, and eight detailed user personas representing the sensibilities, motivations and expectations of different potential user-groups.
Thinking sessions
We held several ‘thinking sessions’, in which we examined the journeys and experiences of specific user personas, brainstormed ideas for raising awareness and sustaining engagement, and wireframed on paper parts of the interface.
The research report supported their funding bids to evidence their understanding of the market gap and users. The knowledge I acquired through this research was a valuable asset for the company, who felt I was the one that knew their users best.
