afterglow
Professional Work can be found at afterglow
Date: 10/20/2021 - 4/1/2022
Afterglow, a women’s sexual wellness and adult entertainment company, hired me to lead a complete redesign of their website. The challenge that comes with designing a sophisticated site for an industry that is seen as taboo, is to attract women that are more accustomed to elegant UIs. In order to attract our desired persona, I studied competitors, as well as other popular streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix, to successfully incorporate refined UI elements.
Project Resulted in a 50% Increase in Subscribers
Testimonial:
“Stephanie is the ideal team player - humble, hungry & smart. She started at afterglow as a UX intern and in six months leveled up to full time UX Designer, almost doubling her salary because of the tremendous growth she exhibited. From the beginning, she was a self-starter - focusing on the customer and competitive research to inform her designs without oversight required. She was the lead designer on an entire web redesign. She is the reason afterglow looks the way it does today. I can't wait to see what she does next in her career!” - Lilly Sparks, CEO & Founder
Original Site
For this case study, I will focus on afterglow’s video details page and the video homepage due to the extensive amount of information architecture that had to be considered for each screen.
Desktop Video Details Page
Mobile Video Details Page
Desktop Video Homepage
Mobile Video Homepage
Persona
To start off the design process I studied the main persona. My goal was to gain a deeper understanding of who the user is and what brings them to afterglow. This particular persona is unique because it often perceived competitor pornographic sites as “distasteful.” So, to combat this challenge I analyzed the other forms of media that the user intakes and translate that data into applicable tactics for afterglow.
Krystina
Age: 28
Occupation: Digital Publicist
Income: 90k
Education: Layola in Marketing
Location: Brooklyn
Barriers:
externally motivated
compares to others
distracted and overworked
Sex Life:
unfulfilled in hook up culture - googles trends and info about sex - owns 1-2 basic sex toys - masturbation isn’t a deeply connected experience - goes out and picks up guys but doesn’t feel great after
Goals:
get married & (probably) have kids
buy a house
rent a place in the Hamptons w/ her friends this summer
wants a passion to feel fulfilled
BIO:
Very motivated/distracted by her career. When not working, catches a class of the latest workout craze (spin, etc.) and grabs a glass of wine with a friend. She wants a long term relationship, but is disillusioned. She goes to Women’s Marches and considers herself very progressive, but only donates every now and then. She watches the bachelorette and most of the books she reads are modern self-help (i.e. Brene Brown). She listens to Dua Lipa, Rihanna, Billie Elish and goes to music festivals 1x/ year. She likes to “be in the know” and gets FOMO easily. She’s a little anxious and smokes weed evenings/weekend to relax and help her sleep. She checks her astrology multiple times per week and craves guidance and direction. Sometimes it feels like she’s on “auto-mode.” She calls her mom everyday.
User Flow
Before diving into iterations, I created a user flow diagram to analyze how users move throughout the site. This helped me study the various routes a user can take throughout the site and how that will impact their experience.
Wireframing
After gathering the requirements for each page, I dove into iterating on the site by sketching out my ideas.
Desktop Video Details Page
Mobile Video Details Page
Desktop Video Homepage
Mobile Video Homepage
Final Prototype
Once the sketches were approved, I gained access to the company’s branding. Moving directly to high fidelity, I expedited the design process to provide the stakeholder with designs that are ready for handoff.
Desktop Video Details Page
Important Requirements Included:
Add a means for users to like and or dislike the video
Have a clear and concise area for a description
Highlight information about the author/actors at the bottom
Keep the tags visible
Provide suggested content to the right like YouTube
Mobile Video Details Page
Important Requirements Included:
Add a means for users to like and or dislike the video
Have a clear and concise area for a description
Highlight information about the author/actors at the bottom
Keep the tags visible
Provide suggested content at the bottom
Hide some of the content in order to not overwhelm the user
Desktop Video Homepage
Important Requirements Included:
Adding buttons above the hero image that clearly indicate the different types of content the video homepage has to offer
Clickable tags on the left that are easy to use and filter the content without distracting the user
Having the most popular tags as suggestions on the explore page
Maintaining a classy and refined aesthetic
Create an easy and fun way for users to browse the content similarly to Netflix and YouTube
Mobile Video Homepage
Important Requirements Included:
Buttons overlaying the hero image must be easy to read and scrollable
An icon that clearly indicates that the user can utilize tags to filter their content
Do not overwhelm the user with the amount of tags by hiding some in an accordion menu
Allowing the videos to have a comfortable horizontal scroll
Conclusion
Working at afterglow was an amazing experience where I gained first hand insight into the world of sextech and UX/UI design. Afterglow taught me the importance of working closely with engineers and the power of gathering requirements before iterating on projects at hand. Afterglow did not only provide me with the hard skills needed to be a successful designer, but demonstrated the impact of team work, time management, and thoughtful collaboration.