What is Experience Platform?

Experience Platform is a robust suite of tools and services that dynamically alters the content and presentation of a site per session to be personalized for the target user based on user understanding.

The platform partners with the data science and membership teams to access information about the user, using machine learning to study user behavior and generate a user understanding model. This enables real-time content and layout changes to better cater to user needs and preferences.

to fetch data from across all Yahoo and its affiliate services with one API call.

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Products in the Experience Platform Suite

By the time I completed my time with the Experience Platform team, it comprised the following products:

• Experience Platform API: The federated backend API that powers the whole platform
• Experience Creator: The frontend tool for experience platform
• Module Catalog: A tool to find or discover available content modules in the Yahoo ecosystem
• Experience Config: A tool to edit content from an individual module and instantly publish changes
• Knowledge Portal: A learning portal to understand the platform, its tools, and its purposed

Who is this product for?

Experience Platform is designed for:

• Yahoo’s owned-and-operated (OnO) properties
• Product owners
• Content creators
• Editors
• Developers across various Yahoo verticals, including Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News, Engadget, and AOL.

What?

What challenges were addressed in this initiative?

Minimal Adoption:

• Misunderstanding of platform capabilities
• Lack of awareness
• Steep learning curve
• Inaccessibility for non-developers

Low Number of User-Personalized Experiences:

• Long development times
• Pipeline friction
• Communication barriers

Long Publishing Times:

• Inability to react to breaking news
• Inability to quickly strike sub-content from a site

How?

How were these challenges addressed?

It starts by assessing the landscape;

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Discover Pain Points

Conducted 50+ user interviews and established the voice of the customer (VoC)

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Misunderstanding of Platform Capabilities:

Built a knowledge portal and spearheaded a unified lexicon initiative across the entirety of Yahoo to clarify platform components and value propositions

Lack of Awareness:

Conducted presentations and workshops to evangelize the platform

Steep Learning Curve:

Replaced the embedded code editor with Monaco editor for better developer support

Inaccessibility for Non-Developers:

Prototyped an interactive GUI and developed a WYSIWYG drag-and-drop layout editor

Created a node/widget-based behavior graph editor for adding complex business logic

Long Development Times:

Implemented interim solutions with Monaco editor and improved JIRA ticket templates

Developed new GUI features for easier use by non-developers

Pipeline Friction and Communication Barriers:

Streamlined communication with comprehensive JIRA templates

Developed an MVP solution for quick deployment using feature flags

Long Publishing Times:

Implemented “Instant Publish” for rapid content updates and adjustments

Built Experience Config for quick content modifications

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User Personas

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User Journey

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Strategy and Roadmap

Success Metrics

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My Impact

Led the ideation, prototyping, MVP, and launch phases of the Experience Platform

My Impact in the Ideation Phase

Top Contributions:

• Conducted 50+ user interviews to uncover needs and pain points
• Established the voice of the customer (VoC)
• Defined user personas and key areas of misunderstanding
• Developed a unified lexicon for Yahoo page components
• Built a knowledge portal to explain platform capabilities

Top Results:

• Improved clarity and understanding of platform capabilities among users
• Enhanced communication with a unified terminology
• Increased product awareness through targeted presentations and workshops
• Identified key user segments and tailored solutions to their needs
• Laid the groundwork for better user engagement with the platform

My Impact in Prototype and MVP

Top Contributions:

• Replaced embedded code editor with Monaco for better developer support
• Prototyped an interactive GUI in Figma as an MVP
• Ran user tests with the MVP to gather feedback
• Developed a WYSIWYG drag-and-drop layout editor
• Created a node/widget-based behavior graph editor

Top Results:

• Reduced development time with enhanced code editor features
• Gathered valuable user feedback to refine the MVP
• Increased developer productivity and reduced learning curve
• Increased user engagement, awareness, and interest in intuitive content creation tools

My Impact in Launching the Product

Top Contributions:

• Evangelized the platform through presentations and workshops
• Developed the “Instant Publish” feature for rapid content updates
• Built Experience Config for quick content modifications
• Streamlined the CI/CD process with interim solutions
• Integrated advanced features into the Experience Creator tool

Top Results:

• Increased adoption and usage of the Experience Platform by 70%
• Improved accessibility for non-developers with Knowledge Portal
• Enabled  rapid response to breaking news and content adjustments
• Improved overall user satisfaction and engagement
• Reduced publishing times and enhanced content management
• Empowered product owners and content creators with powerful, easy-to-use tools

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