Context
This initiative aimed to provide customers a way to manage duplicate candidate profiles across the app. Since a certain amount of features had been added previously, Products requested a research to validate assumptions and to identify what was still needed to meet customer expectations.
I initially joined the project to help process generative research data. From said data set, I managed to synthesize horizontal insights into customer needs and a user experience strategy for the product. Recognizing the potential, the UX leader let me stay in the product space to lead the project.
Process
While this project spanned an entire year from research to delivery, here I only highlight the key contributions that influenced product vision and cross-functional collaboration.
The previous work approached the problem from an admin user’s perspective. However, I discovered a broader problem space with significant impacts on different user types, so I used a horizontal approach to consider the variety of user interactions, both in-and-outside of the system. My strategy aimed to deliver a cohesive experience across the app, acknowledging the constraints of the existing system.
I covered these 3 elements in the experience strategy:
I visualized the concepts in low fidelity, which were then validated through 5 customers and shared with 7 others. The result had gained trust from the Product partner to pivot the development plan.
The initial generative research, which had been designed and conducted before I joined, lacked a significant amount of context about the users. This gap in understanding created a challenge in making decisions from a systems design perspective.
The research showed which workflows were affected, but it didn’t reveal how each user type encountered those situations and how they resolved the consequences. This contextual information was essential to identify the key moments and to design appropriate solutions. With a constraint timeline, I moved forward and began designing while keeping these unknowns in mind.
The design work included creating a new backstage workflow and updating two front-stage ones, involving four distinct user types. Because of its broad impact, my goal was to create a cohesive experience and a scalable design solution.
Despite the wide range of impacted areas, mapping the user journeys revealed common interaction patterns. I abstracted the design problems from the product space by documenting the minimum requirements and user goals behind these interactions. To explore solutions, I facilitated ideation workshops with Design members from other product teams, focusing on key design elements. This approach allowed me to address the need for new patterns while ensuring reusability and alignment with design standards.
Due to the tight timeline, it was unrealistic to conduct user testing for all individual workflows. Recognizing this, I leveraged the monthly meeting with our partnered customers to get sentiments and assess the business impact of the proposed solutions. To evaluate the usability, I forced the new design components and interaction patterns into a patchwork workflow (for narrative purpose), and conducted a usability test. The biggest challenge was guiding users into this (surreal) workflow. But, that was a prime opportunity to get answers for those very last unknowns about user contexts. Before each session, I did research on the customers and the participants to customize the set of interview questions. This prep work enabled me to quickly establish a connection with the participants, and set the right focus for the rest of each session.
Finally, I got enough contextual data and insights to make decisions on the design iterations.
I took the responsibility to plan and facilitate 2 workshops with the development team, which included a stakeholder and 7 engineers at Senior+ levels.
The first was a full-day workshop to introduce the product development plan and estimate the technical work required. The second was a shorter follow-up that allowed for a more in-depth discussion of the system.
Moving away from “fixing” the existing system, my primary goal for the workshops was to encourage the team to think about new approaches to meet user needs.
Before each workshop, I spent time testing the system, reviewing documentation, and familiarizing myself with relevant computer science concepts. This preparation helped me facilitate more productive conversations and ensure we weren’t talking past each other. Next, to effectively communicate the experience strategy, I “translated” the user journey map into a flowchart with decision trees. The flowchart illustrated various user touchpoints and background tasks required to assist users throughout the experience.
The workshops provided a clear and compelling context for why the team needed to focus on these areas, helping engineers quickly know what to plan for upcoming development works. As one Senior engineer puts it: “Every question I had, got answered right in the next activity. It was really good planning.”
By joining the discussion as a well-prepared facilitator, I was able to build trust with the team and empower everyone to innovate for the user experience.
Outcome
By approaching the problem space holistically, I helped my Product partner consistently meet stakeholder expectations and accelerate the project timeline: kicking off development three months ahead of schedule. With thoughtful research and systems thinking, I have identified customer needs and user problems accurately, supporting the Product partners to prioritize work with greater confidence.
This project is still on-going—I cannot write anything more than this.