To build Upsight, the first step was desk research and benchmarking, which helped me to understand if I was on the right path, identify similarities, differences, and key opportunities. I looked at other platforms that rely on community, Q&A format and gamification to keep engagement.
Next, I had to reach out to people, everyday users of online platforms, to understand how they behave and what is important to them when interacting with other people. Another important goal was to identify frustrations and gaps with existing solutions. To meet these two objectives, I set up a survey and some user interviews.
The research revealed some interesting points, which I summarized in 4 key insights:
- Most people interact with both friends and strangers, they see value in community-driven experiences.
- Being cautious is important to people, they want to know who is sharing.
- They want to be pragmatic and efficient, not to waste time on useless information.
- People demonstrate frustration with the lack of authenticity online and are skeptical of sponsored posts and feed format
Most users use generative AI to find and summarize content, and, of course, they may also spend hours doomscroling. We all know mainstream social media is not dying, that is not the point. Looking at other apps and listening to users helped me recognize pain points we can prevent, making the online experience easier, more authentic, and avoiding common user struggles.
These findings shaped the core of our app: quick threads, local voices, and updated information, to help people make informed decisions without relying solely on outdated or algorithm-filtered content.
By the way, this text wasn’t written using AI.