Adding Value & Improving Efficiency by creating a “duplicate” feature

To mitigate an increase in our subscribers churning, we looked for ways to provide more value through workflow efficiency in the internal tool they used to upload artworks for sale. We created the feature to duplicate artwork listings so they could use our internal listing tool faster and easier.

COMPANY

Artsy

timeline

Q2, 2023

MY ROLE

IC Senior Product Designer

problem

Users were spending large amounts of time uploading artworks resulting in negative sentiment about the value of their subscription & churn.

solution

Design & add the ability to duplicate an artwork listing to improve speed & efficiency & add value for subscribers.

IMPACT

Only 4 days after launch, we saw significant adoption with 144 artworks created by duplication, & 21 subscribers using the new feature & finding it organically.

The Process

Phase 1:

Validating The Problem

In order to boost confidence that solving this problem had the possibility to improve our subscriber’s experience, I gathered evidence in 3 main areas:

User Feedback

I conducted a live Q&A session with 4 of our Account Executives (AEs) to hear user feedback firsthand. It was clear from this session that the ability to duplicate a listing was a top-most requested feature.

Competitor Analysis

I searched through help center articles & tested other flows to validate that duplicate was a common feature in internal tools for e-commerce platforms.

User Research Insights

Our User Research Lead gathered evidence from our users to come up with the insight that “partners need to be able to quickly & easily upload artwork information”. This factored into the prioritization of this feature.

Phase 2:

Refine The User Flow

Earlier in the year, the engineering manager on our team took a first pass at prototyping a duplicate feature. This gave the team a good foundation of understanding the back-end capabilities. We brought this first pass back up for review & from there I iterated on the user flow & interaction design.

Design Considerations

To ensure the final user flow was optimized for speed & ease of use, I considered the following key questions when developing the designs:

Reassurance

How do we reassure the user that the action they had just taken was successful throughout the flow?

Optimize For Time

Where does the user expect to be directed once they’ve created a new duplicate, so they can optimize their time spent in this flow?

Keep It Organized

When duplicating an older listing (on page 2 or greater), where do users expect to find the new duplicate listing so they can access it quickly?

Phase 3:

Internal Feedback

After a few rounds of syncing with stakeholders, getting feedback from AEs, & reviewing with the design team, I landed on a user flow that answered these questions.

reassure

We would reassure users by adding a confirmation toast & automatically add the word “COPY” to the listing title.

Optimize for time

The flow would take users to the new editable form once they create a duplicate so they can make changes as quickly as possible.

keep it organized

We used the default sorting logic of adding new duplicates to the top of the list. This was expected behavior & emphasized that the duplicate was a new listing.

Final User Flow

Design Highlights

Make it Discoverable

We launched the MVP with the new CTA, “duplicate,” next to the commonly used “edit” CTA on the artwork listing page. We believed that this front-and-center placement would help with adoption so we could launch & learn.

Confirm the Action

When the user clicks on “duplicate” to close the simple modal they are taken directly to the new artwork listing form, so they can jump right into making further changes. On the editable form, a confirmation toast appears at the top of the screen and the word “COPY” is automatically added to the title to orient the user and confirm the action they just took.

Add it to the top

When the user navigates back to the main listing page, the new duplicate is added at the top, even if the original they duplicated from was much further down the list. This helps to reinforce that the new duplicate is treated the same as a new artwork listing as this is the expected default sorting behavior for new listings.

Error Handling

If there is an error, the user is kept on the artwork list page without progressing and with a bold red banner at the top alerting them so they know to try again. This was an important addition to this project as error validation was a separate project that was waiting to be prioritized, but we felt it was critical to this flow’s success.

Phase 4:

Launch & Learn

The feature was launched on a Thursday & only 4 days after launch, we saw significant adoption with:

+144↑

Artworks

# of artwork listings created by duplication.

+21↑

Users

# of subscribers finding it organically.

We considered this a big win for adding value for our subscribers. It was clear that we had delivered on our goal of providing more workflow efficiency & time would tell if it resulted in a decrease in churn. Overall, this was a fun project to work on knowing that solving the problem for our users would also solve the problem for the business.

© Martha Kelley 2025

© Martha Kelley 2025

© Martha Kelley 2025

© Martha Kelley 2025

© Martha Kelley 2025

© Martha Kelley 2025