TappnGo

As Principal Product UX/UI Designer

Urban Marketing, an Australian-Japanese marketing agency, was about to receive worldwide patent rights to a mobile-only video interactive-interrupt concept that they wanted to turn into new products. They had developed the IP around work done previously for one of their clients in Japan.

I was asked to develop new products around this IP. Define use cases with clear, easy to understand user experience examples, and interfaces that describe and show how the content might be managed by a customer, i.e., advertising agency. Demonstrate something that can be built as a Proof of Concept in three months.

I conducted a series of technology research sessions to understand the patent and to understand the intent, and types of applications they considered viable, and in what markets. I soon discovered there were larger potential implications to the patent that went beyond advertising and into affecting platforms like Youtube to do this on mobile devices. Research revealed that there were very few competitors, and none had protected IP.

I generated a list of concepts and reviewed them with the team on a series of presentations. One concept we called “TappNGo” stood out as universally viable with multiple possible outlets on a single system: 1) Advertising surveys, 2) Political polling in video advertising, 3) Trivia, and 4) Education qualification testing. I defined and designed a structure for the system and presented to stakeholders and engineering.

In addition, I urged them to consider that the patent might preclude Youtube from releasing a similar solution on mobile devices. Possibly even today why we don’t see the overlay buttons in Youtube mobile like in desktop. I recommended they present to Google as a replacement for the Youtube “Skip Advertisement”, effectively turning a negative into an advertising opportunity. Viewers could acknowledge a preference, i.e., which of the two colors is preferred, over the Ad, rather than the negative “Skip” button. Turning a negative into a positive.

My invention to replace the “Skip” button with TappnGo Adds, Polls, A/B testing, Trivia, and Education was well received. It was easy to understand and present forward to their agency, government, education customers and other outlets. The process was also proposed as a new potential web advertising unit. A TappnGo ad platform was also created and tested in multiple markets and gained investment support from the Australian government as TappnEd.