Customer Platform
Helped shape the future vision of a customer Platform for a managed datacenter and cloud-based infrastructure services provider.
In this case study: Concept validation through usability testing, testing feedback synthesis methods
My role
UX Designer
Year
July 2021 - October 2021
The Product
The platform is used by customers of a datacenter and cloud computing services provider. On the platform they check the service status, file issues, and review the billing history.
The Problem
Even though customers were very happy with the service itself and the support provided, they would rarely go on the platform because it looked extremely outdated and not user friendly.
The Goal
To create a future vision of what the platform could be, namely:
-
make the platform a daily go-to tool for the customers,
-
create internal alignment in the company about how the platform should work,
-
replace other collaboration tools (such as old school phone calls) with the platform
Challenges
-
How do we ensure a common understanding of the vision?
-
How do we collaborate effectively with teams that rarely collaborated before?
My Responsibilities
I was responsible for the UX Stream:
-
concept design
-
creating wireframes, clickable prototype, usability testing
Approach
Step 1. Desk research
-
review of the old platform
-
competitor analysis
Step 2. User interviews
-
Synthesis and solution ideation
-
Cross-functional workshop
Step 3. Concept design
UX stream
-
wireframes
-
clickable prototype
UI stream
-
created UI design for hero screens
-
collaborated with marketing agency to inject the new brand into the future vision of the platform
Step 4. Usability testing
Step 5. Finalized the design concept
Usability Testing
The Sessions
We conducted 12 usability studies with various groups of customers. In each session we took down task completion (Easy, Moderate, Failed), our observations and things people were saying. All the notes were colored by sentiment: good, neutral, bad.
Synthesizing insights
After the testing sessions were done, I got down to organizing the feedback. Having first tagged all the posti-its from each session with the number of the participant, I then grouped all the post-its that answer the same question across all sessions. Next, I split them into groups by sentiment: positive, neutral, negative/failed.
Let's take a closer look at this example, where we were testing whether the folders concept helped users get a quick overview of the info they needed. Most users were happy with the layout, there were some recommendations around changing the wording, and 2 users didn't find it useful
So, if many respondents said the same thing or did the same action – that can most likely be grouped into a pattern. For instance, in this next example, we were testing whether our concept for notifications was easy to use and understandable. Only 1 person found it, 4 looked for it somewhere else and 4 completely failed to see it. Groups of red and yellow post-its reflect that problem on the board.
This method makes it easy to visualize patterns and understand them at a glance, instead of sifting through session notes, video recordings, and insights tables.
.png)
Takeaways
-
One of our biggest challenges and achievements was to create alignment between teams inside the company we were designing for.
-
When legacy systems like this are being redesigned, it's extremely important to base design decisions on research and test new solutions with real users. They might be used to patterns which are far from being commonly considered the norm.
-
When designing enterprise products, it's important to remember that the individual users most likely didn't choose that product – the choice was organization wide. Nonetheless, daily use in one way or another shapes the expectations and behaviours they have towards other digital experiences in their lives.
