SUMMARY
UNUM is a social media planning app for content creators. Creators using UNUM were losing hours to a broken publish cycle — planning their layouts carefully, only to find the live result looked wrong. I redesigned the pre-publish experience around accurate previews and layout protection, validated through three rounds of usability testing. The result: creators went from hesitating to confident, cutting their posting process from hours to minutes.
PROBLEM
Creators Spend Hours Planning Their Posts & Still Get It Wrong
PROCESS
Separate Exploration From Decision-Making
I started wide — understanding how creators actually plan and publish today, and mapping exactly where confidence collapsed. Then I narrowed to a single design question: How might UNUM help creators trust what they see before they publish? From there, I expanded again to explore solutions, then converged through testing to keep only what genuinely reduced hesitation.
Research
The Real Issue Was Trust
I interviewed five creators. Every one of them described the same friction: they hesitated to publish because they couldn't trust their preview. They called their grids "fragile systems" where one change could undo hours of work. Several noted that Instagram renders layouts differently across devices, making existing preview tools unreliable.
"The size of the squares don't look like this on Instagram anymore.
This is going to make me delay posting because I don't feel confident in how it will come out"
-Marina, Instagram & Tik Tok Influencer
Affinity Map of Creators who use UNUM and other Social Media Planning Apps
Common Pain Points
Inaccurate Preview
Hours to Plan
Little Trust In Final Result
Hypothesis
If Creators Could See Exactly How Their Content Would Appear Once Live — And Protect Their Curated Layouts While Planning — They Would Publish With Confidence And Stop Fixing Things After the Fact.
Method
Three Rounds Of Iteration With Real Creators
I translated the validated concepts into high-fidelity wireframes and tested them with the same creators across three rounds of iteration.
What testing confirmed: Layout locking resonated immediately. Creators felt more confident knowing their curated posts would stay grouped until they chose to publish.
What testing uncovered: Multiple lock controls caused confusion. AI suggestions felt too limited. Draft actions were unclear because they looked too similar to other AI features.
BUT! Too Many Options Caused Too Much Confusion
Multiple lock controls frustrated the users. AI suggestions felt too limited.
Draft actions were unclear because they looked too similar to other AI features.
SOLUTION
Preview Accuracy With Layout Protection
Based on what three rounds of testing revealed, I refined the design with three focused changes:
Consolidated locking into a single, clear action
Clarified AI entry points with distinct visual cues and labeling
Expanded the preview to show both grid and single-post views across device sizes
IMPACT
Confidence Replaced Hesitation Before Publishing
By the third round, feedback had shifted entirely, from identifying usability issues to suggesting growth opportunities and extensions.
Creators described the flow fitting naturally into their existing workflow.
Multiple creators estimated it would reduce their posting process from hours to minutes.
