design case study
Designing Digital Marketing Simulation
Powered by AI
ROLE
Product designer
responsibility
User research, UX & UI design, user testing
PROJECT TYPE
Product Design
ownership
Novela
Novela is AI-powered digital marketing simulations startup, empower learners to navigate simulation interface, make real-world decision and gain immediate feedback.
Problem
The Learning Gap
Currently digital marketing education faces a challenge: while students understand theory in classrooms, many of them lack the practical experience that's crucial for real-world scenario.
This gap creates hurdles:
- Marketing budgets become learning expenses for new hire
- Campaign results require weeks of waiting
- Limited room for creative experimentation
- Restricted strategy testing due the budget
- Interface like Facebook Ads Manager is complex for new user
Solution
A digital marketing education tools through AI-powered simulations. They want to create an environment where learners can experiment freely, make decisions confidently, and receive instant feedback – all without the constraints of real-world campaigns.
User Research
Shaped by Real Users
The project began with user research, we tested novela initial MVP with professionals, educators, and students to find out their opinion and seeking feedback for this product. This research have several insights that shaped our product design:
- Strong Market Reception: The digital marketing simulation concept well recieve across all user groups, especially with students.
- Information Management, too much information led users to guess rather than think strategically through tasks.
- Technical Language Barriers, Digital marketing terminology created challenges, particularly for students.
- Results simulation hard to understand, Users found understanding simulation outcomes to be the most significant challenge.
These insights became foundational in our design process, shaping how we approached user experience and feature development.
Novela platform MVP
Primary user: The Student
Our research revealed students represent an ideal primary user base for first launch. Because despite their diverse backgrounds and demographics, they share common motivations, challenges, and learning needs in digital marketing.
✓ Motivations
• Eager to gain practical experience before entering the job market.
• Looking for safe spaces to experiment with marketing strategies.
✓ Challenges
• Limited access to real marketing budgets and tools
• Need for immediate feedback to understand impact of their strategy
• Struggle to connect theoretical concepts with practical application
✓ Learning Needs
• Hands-on experience with marketing platforms
• Clear feedback loops that explain cause and effect
• Practical understanding of campaign metrics and optimization
User persona from Novela primary user base
Design Principles
What makes people engage with products and complete tasks? According to the Fogg Behavior Model*, three essential elements must be present: Motivation, Ability, and Triggers. We use this model as the foundation for our design principles in Novela simulation
Scenario
Scenario will provide user with context in the job situations where users have to judge a situation. It helps users with critical thinking and rational awarness.
Exploration
Provide a clear journey map that guides users through task completion. But while the path is structured, users still have the freedom to explore and experiment at their own pace.
Guide
'Ela' serves as Novela's virtual assistance, guiding users through the simulation. This virtual character provides guidance, ensuring users stay informed throughout the process.
Gamification
Incoporating game elements such as points and progression levels. These motivate users to improve their performance and maintain engagement with the platform.
The Fogg Behavior Model — by Marcos Rezende. More information: https://behaviormodel.org
Success Criteria
Clear success metrics are crucial, this metrics providing a framework to evaluate our progress and guide our decisions during team discussions, iterations, and post-launch review, ensuring we stay aligned with our objectives while responding to market feedback
✓ Low learning curve
Users can navigate and use the simulation effectively with minimal onboarding time and without extensive tutorial requirements.
✓ User understand their action
Users develop a solid understanding of digital marketing strategy through hands-on experience, clearly seeing how their decisions influence outcomes.
✓ User use it multiple times
Users are motivated to revisit scenarios, combining learning value with engaging gameplay to encourage experimentation and skill development.
Design exploration
User testing and Iterate
Once the prototype was ready, we conducted multiple rounds of user testing and iteratively refined the design based on feedback. This process helped us identify and remove barriers to user success before market release.
Key improvements we need based on user research:
- Problem: Overwhelmed with setting up ads campaign for new user.
Solution: Breaking down the ad campaign setup and simplifying the UI to make the process more user-friendly. - Problem: Marketing terminology is confusing for students.
Solution: Adding definitions for any digital marketing terminology to help user understand their meaning. - Problem: Results analysis is overwhleming
Solution: We added guidance on the results page to help users better understand their simulation outcomes and summary of the result. - Problem: Users don't know how to setup ads campaign
Solution: We provide case study, objective, and video tutorial to help user understand the context and what should they do.
Final design
Approachable design with low learning curve
We designed the platform by breaking the process into steps and we guide users seamlessly through each stage.
We also carefully simplified certain functionalities, so students is able to grasp the core concepts of building an effective ad campaign without have too much focus learning the intricacies of the platform’s UX/UI or technical details.
We designed the UI carefully to maintain a familiar look and feel for users when they transition to the actual Facebook Ads campaign tool, without overwhelming them with irrelevant functionalities.
UI elements are carefully designed to create a more welcoming experience, rather than just feeling like an educational tool.
Helping new student to get on their feet
We added clear explanations and tips to guide users through the process, along with definitions and context for all digital marketing terms in the simulation.
We use Ela chatbot that can answer all related question about the platform and how to setup a campaign. This has proven especially useful for students who may not be familiar with industry jargon.
Impact
Through user-centric design and strong collaboration between founders, co-founders, and developers. The product successfully launched to the public just two months after initial discussion. It has gained significant traction among students, edtech companies, and university.
As of 2024, the product has reached remarkable engagement metrics*:
- Over 10,000 active learners in 2024.
- 34 average simulation plays per user, significantly exceeding the required minimum of 3 plays.
*This information is based on public release information in Linkdln
Students use Novela in classroom. Image taken from Linkdln. Copyright by Novela.ltd
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