Hi Pinterest Design Team,
I am Esther Pelaez (she/her), a first-generation college grad, avid Pinner, and mental well-being advocate. I am a current DesignLab UX Academy student transitioning into Product Design with over 4 years of customer experience and cross-functional collaboration. Pinterest has done a great job in the past year with supporting Pinners and Pinployees: expanded employee benefits in response to COVID-19 and launched a compassionate search experience for people under emotional strain, like anxiety, depression, and stress. I would like to be one of the driving forces behind these initiatives!
Based on conversations with Product Designers at Pinterest, knowing how to work cross-functionally with Product Managers and Engineers is an important skill every designer should have. My past experience working cross-functionally with the Marketing, Sales, IT, and Construction team to open a WeWork building taught me the value behind learning specific terminology and setting up time to speak to these teams to build strong relationships and communicate effectively. I hope to bring this learning to the Product Design Apprenticeship at Pinterest.
Thank you for considering me for the Product Design Apprentice role. I hope to hear from you soon.
Check out the three reasons why I fit this role:
View ways to improve user experience at Pinterest:
Qualifications
Click through the slide to take a look at 3 reasons why I believe I am a good fit for this role!
Problems & Solutions
Thank you for taking a look at this section!
I’m excited to share with you a few problems I’ve thought of and possible solutions. These solutions are assumptions for now, but I would love to get the chance to work on these projects, something similar, or something completely different during my Product Design Apprenticeship at Pinterest. These solutions are not backed by research and would still need some sort of unbiased user research conducted.
Users are still able to upload emotionally harmful content to the platform.
Issues with the user flow when it comes to the shopping experience for the user.
Compassionate search resources are inaccessible to users who do not search “stress quotes” or “work anxiety.”
Users are still able to upload emotionally harmful content to the platform.
Problem
Although the initiatives Pinterest has taken to moderate content on the social platform - Content Creator Code, combating misinformation, and disabling searches around harmful terms - have demonstrated the company’s commitment to users, this type of content can still be uploaded by content creators.
Solution
To keep harmful content that causes emotional harm to Pinners, messages could pop up below fields when someone inputs the words like "depression" or "anxiety" in the title or description. Sample messages are shown in the images below.
Option 1:
Option 2:
Issues with the user flow when it comes to the shopping experience for the user.
Problem
There are product links on Pinterest that take users to the homepage, rather than the product page of the item they were viewing on Pinterest. This is actually a poor marketing strategy that would need to be resolved with the content creator because it will help improve the user experience when Pinners are taken to another page, and it will help increase conversions for the business that added that content to Pinterest.
Solution
Provide educational content or marketing guidelines underneath the "Add destination link" field when creating a pin. It would say:
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"If you are Pinning a product from your website, add the URL of the product page. This ensures a good experience for your potential customers and may increase conversions."
Compassionate Search resources are inaccessible to users who do not search “stress quotes” or “work anxiety.”
Problem
Currently, users who search for things like “stress quotes” or “work anxiety” or terms that indicate the user might be feeling down receive a prompt at the top of the page to access self-compassion exercises. But, users who type “mindfulness” or “relaxation” do not receive this prompt. This feature could also be useful to someone who searches for “mindfulness” or “relaxation” but is no longer undergoing emotional distress.
Solution
Have a prompt pop up at the top of the page when someone searches “meditation” or other wellness-related activities. This prompt would be the same one that shows when people search "stress" or "anxiety."