Project Overview
For this project, we had a limited timeline and we needed to come up with a design recommendation since the customer also needed to meet a deadline. To be able to quickly reach a conclusion we chose to conduct a condensed design sprint consisting of three employees from the accounting firm and two designers.
Because of the time limit, the design recommendation was only to be given for desktop as the platform is mostly used on the desktop web.
My contributions
Identifying the problem areas
Reviewing their current designs and a potential mockup
Constructing the condensed design sprint Facilitating the workshop.
Creating and holding the final presentation
Onboarding
Initial phase
The first part of the assignment was getting an onboarding to the users, issues and problem statements that the platform was facing. This information was collected through data that the customer had on their platform.
The problems
1.
The landing page was lacking clear information hierarchy
2.
Primary tasks were hard to achieve
3.
Marketing-focused instead of a workspace
4.
The site was not dynamic and scalable
5.
Components that didn't have a clear purpose were taking space (calendar)
UX audit
Further, me and my teammate conducted a UX audit on the current designs and also the design suggestions that were provided by the client. Using usability heuristics and design principles we were able to identify some issues that the site was facing.
Condensed Design Sprint
Preparation
The first part of doing the condensed design sprint was preparing the condensed workshop in Miro. I made parts of it pre-filled such as the overview map (including users, the purpose of the platform, pain points and goals), the design review, and I also added images of competitors that were sent to us beforehand. Other parts such as the HMW notes, lightning demo and sketching we left blank to be able to fill it in during the workshop.
Conducting the workshop
My role was to facilitate the workshop and guide the participants through it but I was also part of the workshop such as writing down HMW notes, lightning demo and sketching. Together we came to a conclusion of a way forward and how to improve the platforms user experience.
Analysis
For this part, me and my colleague together went through the data that we had collected during the project. We laid out all the data from the workshop and started sketching on a potential wireframe while constantly iterating and referencing back to our findings.
Design recommendation
The result became a slightly different approach than the one that was agreed on in the workshop as we wanted to really focus on the users’ primary needs and usage for the platform. The result was finalized in a simple wireframe which would be the design recommendation that the client could base their improvements on.
Presentation
The last step was to present the outcome that me and my UX colleague did together. This was done in a remote presentation where we went through the recommendation and the client got to ask questions and provide feedback. The client was satisfied with the recommendation and asked for further help when it would be time to implement the new design.
