Project Information

  • Overview: Source Intelligence is a supply chain compliance portal that helps companies collect and analyze information on domestic and international regulations.
  • Team: Myself (sole, lead designer), CPO ,Product Manager, Subject Matter Experts, Lead Developer
  • Problem: Collecting and analyzing compliance information across multiple regulations is overwhelming and hard to manage.
  • Business Objective: Drive more sales through an updated user experience.
  • Goal: Provide a comprehensive experience that raises NPS scores by at least 1 point.
  • Duration: Ongoing (Still in Progress)
  • Metrics: Increased Customer satisfation metrics

Understanding the Problem

Prior to design, I needed a better idea of who our target users really were, what they did in their day to day jobs, and what their biggest pains were. I first conducted a survey to capture some data on what users thought of our existing solutions, to determine what worked and what didn't. I also asked for an NPS score in this survey and got an average of 6.2 (Room for improvement!) I then conducted 15 contextual inquiries of people who fit the demographic, but were not current users, via video call to learn about their existing processes in the real world. I compiled the qualitative data and had myself and the team organize a virtual affinity diagram, which yielded some key trends in the process.

Personas & User Journeys

After identifying trends in user goals and pains in their day to day business, I created personas and journey maps to represent our users, what hurts, and what goals they are trying to achieve.

Information Architecture

Based on feedback on features and hierarchies that worked in existing systems, the initial information architecture was designed.This went through several iterations as we learned more about what mattered most to our users in testing and launch.

Wireframes

Wireframes and wireflows were then created, discussed, and iterated on. Several rounds of internal talks were had with stakeholders and developers. With stakeholders, we identified some key issues regarding how users manage data across different facets of the platform, and made adjustments to make them universal. With the development team, we discovered certain areas that would be expensive for page load times, and implemented ways to reduce the perceived and actual load.

Visual Design

I then created a style guide that was in congruence with some of our existing core colors. I derived the palette based on Material Design standards and tested my selections for accessibility. I then chose a font that I believed matched the tone of our site, modern and professional, while also ensuring that it would be usable across a variety of languages, as many of our suppliers were from China and other regions.

Hi-Fidelity and Prototypes

High Fidelity designs and prototypes were created and iterated upon internally. We held discussions with a set of users from our initial survey who were willing to discuss more with us, and discovered pitfalls with their existing systems and assessed how we could better avoid them in the existing system.

Results

After our first major design change, our score rose to an 8.6! Our sales also saw a huge boost in numbers, and while there are many factors that lead to this, the re-design was hailed as one of the major reasons.

Monitoring & Improving

Mechanisms were put in place by the development team to monitor usage within the application (Heatmapping, Google Analytics). We are able to see which features are being used, and how often.
I put a live survey in place which captures NPS scores on a rotating basis, and then compare those scores and feedback to any updates we have made on the platform. I also working closely with the client success team to pull out and compile any comments or concerns coming from our customers, which are stack ranked and addressed as necessary.
I've continued to work with the development team and make my own modifications in the code to adjust and test design modifications.

Reflections

  • More Testing Before Launch - Due to business and time constraints, I did not have the go ahead to test our prototypes on users before launch. Doing so would have caused much better visibility into what key pitfalls users would have encountered after the site was developed, and saved time and headache in the long run.
  • Relying Too much on Stakeholders - Another business constraint was the assumption that our stakeholders know what our users want. Pushing harder against this assumption would have yielded a more user centric design before launch.
  • NPS Metrics are Great - Once the product is out in the wild, continuing to collect and address users concerns, while aligning scores with releases is a very fruitful way to continue to iterate after a launch.