The final prototype including major flows and animations of the feature solution - the design decisions and process is explained further in the next sections of this case study.
IMVU is the world’s largest avatar-based 3D social network where a community of content creators come together to build friendships, socialize and earn livelihoods. A first creator economy of its kind where over 55 million 3D goods are bought and sold by active participation of over 1 million users daily for an average time of 55 minutes globally from the US all the way to the UK, France, Canada and Brazil. IMVU ecosystem thus, is a top 10 most downloaded social app in the US and in the top 5 social apps by spend in the US.
IMVU is home to over 200,000 content creators worldwide who through a derivation process create virtual goods such as clothing, avatar skins, poses and stickers on IMVU studio. Once a virtual object has been made, it’s placed in a virtual goods catalog for the public to engage with in activities on app. For each sale, the creator of said product will earn a specified amount, based on the value placed on that content. Although the first sale of the product brought in game revenue to the creator, there was no way to track every resale thereafter for all creators of the derivation chain to have ownership and earn royalties.
IMVU is home to over 200,000 content creators worldwide who through a derivation process create virtual goods such as clothing, avatar skins, poses and stickers on IMVU studio. Once a virtual object has been made, it’s placed in a virtual goods catalog for the public to engage with in activities on app. For each sale, the creator of said product will earn a specified amount, based on the value placed on that content. Although the first sale of the product brought in game revenue to the creator, there was no way to track every resale thereafter for all creators of the derivation chain to have ownership and earn royalties.
The NFT marketplace will unlock new functionality providing the 200,000 creators a way to earn by transacting in cryptocurrency and also royalty sharing. Introducing scarcity, proof of ownership, and ancillary benefits to virtual goods will supercharge the IMVU economy making it not just business profitable but also empower content creators.
A tool that helps creators derive, create and turn their 2D textures and 3D models into products for sale on the IMVU catalog.
Providing a feature to be able to mint NFTs on studio and set a selling price would further encourage creators to release them on the marketplace.
6 main UX flows were identified -
User testing was conducted on usertesting.com where a sample group of 10 creators and other users were interviewed on each platform using a script to complete the buy, resale and purchase summary flows. Following which questionnaires were sent to better understand the desirability and other feedback they might have
Limited Edition 1 of N: After introduction one of a kind NFTs in the mvp phase of this feature, in the next phase we introduced limited editions of NFTs. Maximum quantities of which that could be created were 10K.
NFT Publishing & Minting in Studio: Phase 3 of the NFT project was to allow creators on studio to be able to create, publish and mint their own NFTs. Further explained in another case study that can be found here.
I had so much fun while working on this project - learning and growing with new domain knowledge in the web3 space. It was a challenging experience to bring in creativity and feasibility together for a very technical yet innovative project such as this. Having the opportunity to work with multiple teams particularly made me learn a lot about collaboration because everyone came in from diverse backgrounds with different goals that eventually led us to collaborate on a converging path of achieving a specific style, language, user interaction and robust back end. I also got hands on experience with the blockchain team and engineers from different platforms - working closely made me cognizant about feasibility, new age technology and needs on different platforms. User testing and user research on the other hand made me realize how important it is for me as a designer to keep my bias in check alongside develop empathy for the end users of the product.