Tencent

騰訊

Research for Tencent to optimize QQ browser

 

Project scope and Role

Period: 2.5 months
Responsible work:

  1. Organized 4 design thinking workshops.
  2. Conducted 2 user research projects.

 

Background

Tencent is one of the largest Internet companies in China. There are six business groups. QQ browsers is a product under Mobile Internet Group (MIG) which allows users to search for any kind of information online.

 

Business Problem

QQ browser lost its users due to the fast-growing of the competitors.

 

Business Goal

Increase active users on QQ browser.

 

Research and Design Goal

  1. Find out user behavior and user needs when using the visual search engine on QQ browser and take findings as to the base of designing new features on QQ browser.
  2. Lead directors and more than 100 interns to find out potential user behavior and needs.

 

Research and Design Goal

  1. User research: We conducted both in-depth interviews with adults and focus group interviews with teenagers to understand the behaviors, motivations, and values of users using browsers, explored unfulfilled needs since teenagers tend to more talkative in groups according to experiences. As the main users are in South China, we selected users in both Shenzhen and Dongguan and held interviews in these two cities.

    Focus group

    In-depth interview

     

  2. Design thinking workshop: We involved different stakeholders at four places with the background from team managers to more than 100 interns to select a target group of potential users and went through a design thinking process to foster innovative solutions for QQ browsers.

    tencent

    4 sites (Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangdong, and Sichuan) remote workshop

Result

  1. Users rely on visual search engine more than traditional search engine: Visual search engine is used in various scenarios: checking homework answer, learning about plants and shopping.
  2. Users have many visual search engine apps on their phones and they have specific preferences in different use cases.
  3. Eight prototypes were created according to findings found by workshop participants.

 

Contribution

  1. New features are built on QQ browser visual search engine based on research findings.
  2. The prototypes are iterated and applied on QQ browser.
  3. The workshop project won Tencent internal innovation award.