Presented the value of efficient UX design to stakeholders and transformed complex technical requirements into a user-friendly solution, collaborating with global teams.
Role
UX Research, UI Design, Prototyping, Illustration, Project Planning, User Testing
Team
2-4 Designers, Software Engineer Team(India, US), 2 Product Owners(India, US), Global Program Owner(India, US), Business/Marketing Team(US, Turkey, Canada)
Timeline
Oct 2023 - Present
Tools
Figma, Azure DevOps
Starting as an entry-level designer, I first got tasked to evaluate an admin site that was built scratch from developers.
It was me and a senior designer at the beginning. We didn’t get any base information or specific plans about this project.
Work Challenge 01
Zero info about users/business goals. Lack of attention on the project.
Work Challenge 02
Challenge to create a single, unified admin tool supporting not for one, but multiple different loyalty apps.
Work Challenge 03
How can we iterate while user stories are signed off?
Work Challenge 01
Solution 01
Went through evaluation on an existing admin tool site and created flow charts
Work Challenge 02
Solution 01
Define common problems and design solutions that work across all admin tools for different loyalty platforms.
Work Challenge 03
Solution 01
Worked with a UX researcher on constructing a user testing and spoke with product owner, referencing users’ feedbacks.
Work Challenge 01
Solution 02
Presented concept screens to the product owners
Solution 01
Went through evaluation on an existing admin tool site and created flow charts
Work Challenge 03
Solution 02
Created a clear list and chart of design changes suggested
We had no information on users and business goals. No one paid much attention to redesigning the admin tool—except for us designers and a few developers.
We went through evaluation on an existing admin tool site and created flow charts to investigate the potential pain points and reorganize flows of a complicated admin system.
With no users to interview or gather pain points, I conducted a heuristic evaluation based on Nielsen Norman guidelines. I identified several severe issues, to make informed assumptions about potential user struggles with the complex admin tool.
We had ongoing discussions with developers via walkthrough calls and slide decks to understand the technical logic and limitations. We then created flow charts to restructure the admin tool for different campaign and content types.
Brought more attention to the project by gathering more eyes into our concept screens.
After the UX research process, we jumped into creating concept screens.
Our priority was to spark interest from the GPO(Global Program Owner) or PO(Product Owner) by having a visual look ready. My coworker and I convinced our manager to schedule a meeting with POs from multiple loyalty platforms who might be interested.
During the meeting, I led a 30-minute presentation, highlighting the key severe issues identified in our evaluation and showcasing the solutions, with prototypes for creating different campaigns.
*Photo - 'Create Standard Campaign' & 'Create PO1 Campaign' prototypes from concept screens
As a result, POs from different platforms were interested and the GPO decided to add more loyalty platforms (Kazandirio, Tasty Rewards, Gatorade) in the admin tool project.
The GPO then decided, "Let's create one admin tool for all loyalty platforms." How can we design a unified tool that can consistently support multiple distinct systems?
Define common problems and design solutions that work across all admin tools for different loyalty platforms.
We discovered other admin sites built from scratch by developers. I conducted a heuristic evaluation of these sites and gathered insights similar to those from our previous evaluations.
We also reused the initial flowcharts and applied consistent principles to the overall campaign creation structure.
Key, common problems and solutions defined
Problem 🚨
Each campaign set up process requires a huge amount of work with countless inputs and setups to complete.
Solution ✅
-Use process indicator to provide goal-gradient effect.
-Organize scattered inputs into related groups.
-Create a step-by-step process, rather than an all-in-one approach.
Problem 🚨
System is built in a system-oriented manner, but not user-friendly.
-Most of the languages are system-oriented and ambiguous to recognize their context.
-The features are formed in a non-familiar structure. It’s likely for users to not remember, especially when they don’t use the admin tool for a while and return.
-Inconsistent form of UI elements and structure - inconsistent look of action buttons, icons, wordings etc.
Solution ✅
-Provide visual elements/hints with preview feature.
-Reset the language and be consistent with the use of words.
Problem 🚨
Errors or detrimental actions are likely to happen within this complicated system, but it’s lacking the prevention for those errors.
Solution ✅
Provide adequate amount of reminders with modals, especially for confirmation purposes.
Problem 🚨
The setups, inputs and pages are overly scattered, so it’s hard to navigate through different pages.
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Solution ✅
-Group related elements/pages close together.
-Add a reminder about the next step, guiding users to the desired action.
How can we iterate while user stories are signed off?
I believe designs are never ‘done’. There are always rooms to improve and iterate endlessly. However, the stakeholders are focused on finishing the designs quickly and move on.
The challenge is how can we persuade stakeholders to allow for iteration without hindering developers building and not make the blame come to the designers for extending the overall workflow.
Worked with a UX researcher on constructing a user testing and referenced users’ feedbacks.
With a UX researcher, I created prototypes for four users and participated in testing for two weeks.
*Photo - 'Create Standard Campaign' & 'Create PO1 Campaign' prototypes from concept screens
User Test Participants
Mock user for
dry run
Marketing
associate manager
Marketing
senior analyst
Lead developer
Here are the high severity issues discovered from user testing:
Users were uncertain about what ‘preview’ was showing and preferred to see actual images and titles instead of sample images and titles.
Users find the 'rules/outcomes' set up and ‘scan receipt’ set up confusing.
At first glance, users didn’t know where to click from the start.
After discovering the main issues, we sent the report to the PO and suggested design changes by adding side notes to certain screens.
As a result, it was an efficient persuasion for the product owners to say ‘yes’ for some design change requests.
*Photo - Side note with 'Designer's change update' placed on top of approved design screens.
Created a whole section or list of design changes suggested.
I had a lot of conversations with the lead designer about the complex team structure in a big corporate. We figured out that while we could push for a better design direction, it will be the POs making decisions and request changes, confirming with other teams.
I decided to not make changes on the current work where developers are using, but added side notes to the design screens and tagged the POs with explanations in the comments.
I also put together a list of design changes with summaries, so the lead developers and POs could quickly review everything without having to jump between screens.
*Photo - The sheet includes links to navigate to certain screens and how severe the changes are.
*Photo - The summary section shows the current design and iterated design side by side for a direct comparison.
We’ve gained positive feedback from the business team of how the redesigned admin tool is easier to use, than the previous ones.
My next action with the team is to identify more opportunities for the next generation of this marketing admin tool. I will work on building an E2E user journey to seek improvements and use a scoring framework to assess.
In my first work experience, it was challenging to adapt to cross-functional teamwork across different countries and start a project from scratch with just me, another designer, and a few developers. Here are the key lessons I learned:
- When the project is least prioritized with minimal attention, it’s efficient to be proactive in reaching out to different people and present a visual look of the project with concept screens, in order to get more eyeballs.
- There’s no need to obey the PO's requests. I’d try to ask ‘why’ if the requests don't make sense.
- Always have adequate time to review with the design team and iterate as much as possible, before handing it off to other teams. Try to not let other teams rush your workflow.
- Enforce POs to go through a formal process of requesting changes after sign offs or when designs met all the acceptance criterias and are handed off - record on ADO board.
