Designing Crowdtap’s First Video Response Experience
Expanding Suzy’s qualitative research ecosystem with a 0→1 asynchronous video action
Overview
Suzy is a consumer insights platform used by brands and researchers to create studies and gather feedback. Crowdtap is Suzy’s consumer community, where members participate in research activities in exchange for points and rewards. Suzy Live already supported scheduled, live qualitative research through remote moderated interviews with consumers recruited from Crowdtap.
The video response action expanded that ecosystem with a lighter-weight, asynchronous qualitative format that members could complete directly in Crowdtap.
Qualitative research helps us understand why something is happening—and what we should do about it.
Video responses created a faster way to capture that context without requiring a scheduled live interview, while also aligning with qualitative capabilities becoming more common across the research industry.
I owned the UX strategy and interaction design for this 0→1 experience. I defined the end-to-end participant journey, conducted competitive analysis, synthesized member research, and partnered with Product, Legal, and Engineering from initial definition through post-launch evolution.
Outcome
92% average video response completion
97% average standard survey completion
5 percentage points difference between the two experiences
Product Ecosystem
Suzy Researcher-facing platform for creating and managing consumer research.
Crowdtap Consumer community where members participate in research and earn points.
Suzy Live Scheduled, moderated qualitative interviews with consumers recruited through Crowdtap.
Video responses Asynchronous, self-recorded qualitative feedback completed directly within Crowdtap.
Researcher / Brand → Suzy → Crowdtap → Consumer feedback
For qualitative research:
Suzy Live
Scheduled → Moderated → Deeper conversation
Video response
Asynchronous → Self-recorded → Quick qualitative feedback
My Role
UX Strategy · Interaction Design · Competitive Analysis · Legal Collaboration
I owned:
End-to-end video response journey
Competitive analysis of qualitative research platforms
Synthesis of existing Crowdtap member archetypes
Consent, permission, recording, review, and submission states
Legal-content hierarchy and interaction design
Usability testing of consent-placement concepts
Translation of Legal requirements into participant-facing UX
Redesign of the consent model when requirements changed after launch
Partners: Product · Legal · Engineering
The Opportunity
Expanding qualitative research beyond live interviews
Suzy Live already supported deep, moderated conversations. Video responses introduced a complementary model:
Suzy Live
Scheduled → Moderated → Deeper conversation
Video response
Asynchronous → Self-recorded → Quick qualitative feedback
The action helped Suzy align with emerging industry capabilities while creating a foundation for scaling asynchronous qualitative research over time.
A standard Crowdtap response could be completed quickly:
Answer → Submit
Video introduced more participation effort:
Understand → Decide → Grant access → Record → Review → Submit
I framed the UX challenge as:
How might we introduce a higher-effort qualitative action while preserving clarity, control, and participation?
Launch constraint
The first release launched in the Crowdtap app due to development resource allocation.
This was a delivery constraint, not the ideal long-term platform strategy.
Because video actions offered higher point values than standard surveys, limiting them to one platform could influence where members chose to participate and create a temporary feature-parity gap.
I treated app-first as a delivery constraint while designing the experience to support broader expansion later.
Understanding the Member Mental Model
Designing around behavior, not age
Before defining the interaction, I revisited Crowdtap’s existing member archetypes to understand what might influence participation in a higher-effort activity.
The research suggested that engagement, perceived value, reward sensitivity, and effort were more useful design considerations than age alone.
| Archetype | Evidence relevant to participation | Design interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Patty — Power User | Highly engaged, prioritizes higher-point activities, and explicitly expressed interest in verbally responding to open-ended questions. | Strongest direct evidence of receptivity. |
| Cassie — Casually Committed | Point-conscious and interested in richer participation formats such as product samples and live interviews. | Potentially receptive when value is clear. |
| Hugo — Hobbyist | Participates frequently and wants additional earning opportunities and research formats. | Potentially receptive; ease of participation matters. |
| Nathan — Noncommittal | Wants higher-value opportunities but is sensitive to effort and time-to-reward. | Participation likely depends on perceived value. |
Key insight
Reward sensitivity appeared across age groups, suggesting that engagement and perceived value were more useful design considerations than age alone for a higher-effort participation experience.
I used this insight to move the design conversation away from demographic assumptions and toward the participant value exchange.
Working hypothesis
I translated the research into a working hypothesis:
If members understood the additional value of video participation and the experience remained simple and trustworthy, they would be more willing to accept the additional effort.
That gave me four principles for the experience:
Make the value clear
Members should understand why the additional effort is worthwhile.
Reduce technical friction
Permissions, recording, review, and submission should feel familiar.
Set expectations before recording
Members should understand what they are being asked to share before activating their camera.
Preserve participant control
Members should be able to make an informed decision about whether to participate.
Defining a New Behavior
Learning from established research platforms
Crowdtap had no existing video response pattern, so I conducted a competitive analysis to understand how qualitative research platforms handled similar participant moments.
I evaluated:
expectation-setting,
consent,
camera and microphone permissions,
recording,
review and retake,
submission,
and declining participation.
Two approaches were especially useful.
Competitive insight
I did not use the analysis to select a competitor pattern to copy.
I used it to understand the range of established interaction conventions available to us.
Design principle
Match the prominence of the consent interaction to the sensitivity and consequences of what the participant is agreeing to.
Competitive research established interaction conventions. Legal established Crowdtap’s requirements. I translated the two into the participant experience.
Defining the Experience
I mapped the complete journey before designing individual screens:
Video question → Set expectations → Consent → Camera and microphone permissions → Record → Review / retake → Submit → Continue survey
I defined the critical interaction states:
Consent — agree / decline
Permissions — allow / deny
Recording — start / interrupt / complete
Review — retake / submit
Recovery — permission or recording failure
I also intentionally separated two different decisions:
Legal consent
Do I agree to how my recording and information will be used?
Device permissions
Can Crowdtap access my camera and microphone so I can record?
This ensured that technical access was not mistaken for participant consent.
Consent and device permissions were separate decisions
One important part of the interaction architecture was separating legal consent from device permissions.
Legal consent
Do I agree to how my recording and information will be used?
Device permission
Can Crowdtap access my camera and microphone so I can create the recording?
Granting camera access did not mean a member had consented to how the recording could be used.
Likewise, agreeing to participate did not guarantee that the member would grant camera or microphone access at the device level.
I intentionally separated these moments so that technical permission could not be mistaken for participant consent.
Designing the Initial Consent Experience
For the initial release, I partnered with Legal and Product to incorporate the required disclosure into the video response journey.
The first version used an acknowledgment pattern:
I have read the terms and conditions.
Members reviewed the disclosure, selected a checkbox, and continued with the video response.
This established an explicit acknowledgment state for the first release.
One Year After Launch
Legal asked Product to revisit consent
Approximately one year after launch, Legal approached Product with updated requirements for how consent needed to be communicated and captured.
The specific business trigger was not part of my design brief, so I would not attribute the request to a particular regulation, client requirement, or participant complaint.
What changed for the experience was clear:
Legal wanted members to make an explicit decision about the use of their information rather than simply acknowledge that they had read the terms.
My reframe
I reframed the request from a copy update into an interaction-design problem.
The question was no longer:
Did the member acknowledge the terms?
It became:
Did the member explicitly agree or decline?
Redesigning the Decision, Not Just the Copy
Initial interaction
Disclosure
↓
☐ I have read the terms and conditions
↓
Skip / Submit
The interaction captured acknowledgment, but the unchecked state remained undefined.
“Skip” also left ambiguity around exactly what the member was declining.
Revised interaction
I redesigned the decision around an explicit consent state:
Explain that video participation is optional
↓
Explain how the recording and identifiable information may be used
↓
Do you agree to the use of your information?
○ I agree
○ I do not agree
↓
Continue
The redesign changed the interaction from:
Acknowledgment → explicit consent
The change was not simply legal copy. It changed the participant decision model.
Working With Legal
Legal owned the legal requirement.
I owned how that requirement became a participant experience.
I partnered with Legal to understand:
what information needed to be communicated,
what decision members needed to make,
and what constituted an acceptable consent state.
I translated those requirements into:
information hierarchy,
interaction sequencing,
choice architecture,
decline behavior,
and the relationship between consent and device permissions.
I then partnered with Product and Engineering to ensure those decisions worked within the broader survey workflow.
Balancing Three Needs
I evaluated the interaction against three different needs.
Legal
Capture a clear and explicit participant decision.
Members
Understand what they were agreeing to without unnecessary complexity or pressure.
Product
Protect participation within an established survey experience.
My design approach was to sequence those needs clearly:
Explain → Decide → Enable → Record
Outcome
Post-launch behavioral data showed:
92% average video response completion
compared with:
97% average standard survey completion
—a difference of 5 percentage points.
Despite introducing additional interaction—including consent, camera and microphone permissions, and recording—the video response experience remained close to Crowdtap’s established survey completion benchmark.
The result showed that Crowdtap could introduce a substantially higher-effort research action without creating a large completion penalty.
The result was also consistent with my earlier hypothesis around perceived value and effort, although completion data alone could not establish whether reward, usability, engagement, trust, or another factor drove the behavior.
Reflection
0→1 design extends beyond the interface
Introducing video required me to define how participation, consent, device access, recording, and submission worked together as one experience.
Launch was not the end of the design process
When Legal requirements changed after launch, I revisited the underlying interaction model instead of treating the request as a copy revision.
Behavior was more useful than demographics alone
Our member research helped me frame video participation around value, engagement, trust, and effort rather than assuming age predicted willingness.
Key Takeaway
The project reinforced that designing a new capability means defining the rules around it—not just the screens that represent it.