Improving productivity for social media managers on the go

Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management platform that enables businesses to understand and reach their audience, engage their community, and measure performance.

As the design lead for Sprout’s mobile team, I collaborated with different product development squads to empower our users to stay productive on the go. I led the design for a comprehensive overhaul of the mobile apps, leveraging native mobile platforms to create a more cohesive, efficient, and intuitive user experience.

Impact

Productivity on the rise!

Alongside qualitative research to understand how these changes impacted social media managers' daily workflows, we tracked these key metrics to measure productivity.

34% increase in daily active users on iOS and 16% on Android

85% increase in total message actions

40% increase in average screen views per person

CHALLENGE

Unintuitive navigation is the greatest barrier to productivity

Through internal product audits and baseline usability testing, we found these key issues to address.

Unstructured and disorganized

People felt overwhelmed by the content in the app. It was too easy to get lost and go down endless rabbit holes with no context of where you are.

Poor app performance

The app often experienced long load times and an inconsistent, buggy interface, making it unreliable and diminishing user trust.

Inconsistent language and labels

Many navigation labels were confusing or misleading, and there were numerous inconsistencies both within the mobile apps and between the mobile and web versions.

Limited search functionality

iOS lacked contextual search within its content streams, a long-standing backlog item that was highly requested by clients, especially for a content-dense app.

PROCESS

Take it apart to make it whole

Laying everything "out on the table"

This project focused heavily on information architecture, requiring us to deeply understand the content and collaborate with end-users to reorganize it in a way that ensures long-term sustainability.

Translate content hierarchy to design components

Working within the self-imposed constraint of adhering to native mobile patterns, I designed the navigation components to systematically align with the new information architecture.

Design, test, and iterate with internal social media managers

We were fortunate to have in-house social media managers using Sprout Mobile to manage Sprout's own social presence. When time was tight, they became my most valuable test subjects, helping bring concepts to life. I prioritize rapid iteration, testing ideas early by putting low-fidelity visuals in front of users to accelerate the design process.

solution

Use the power of the native platforms to get the most out of Sprout on the go

Leverage native patterns

To optimize performance, leverage familiar mobile affordances, and ensure efficient build times, we aimed to use as many native design patterns as possible while maintaining consistency with Sprout’s design systems.

Intuitive navigation system

We made a significant investment in Information Architecture, bringing much-needed structure to dense content sections. This improved the app's navigation, making it more intuitive, flexible, and reliable.

Extended mobile affordances

Social media management is a 24/7 job, and leveraging native mobile affordances to create intuitive shortcuts empowered users to stay productive, even outside the office.

Mobile design system

This project marked the beginning of the official mobile design system. By documenting patterns and system guidelines, we provided a foundation that enabled mobile contributors on the product development team to maintain and scale the mobile apps more sustainably.