Sensedia
How can we improve usability and adoption rates?
Context
The Events Hub is a SaaS platform created to enhance event capture, processing, and analysis with real-time responses. It provides greater scalability, growth, and responsiveness to your architecture while reducing switching costs.
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Challenges​
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Product with high complexity
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Integration with other products​
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No access to the original design files, only the prototype
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Limited access to production
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Lack of user data
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Rebrand being made simultaneously
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Time constrain to do EVH 2.0 launch
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Platform migration plan
Impact
My role
At Sensedia, I worked as a Product Designer on the Events Hub team, tasked with delivering a new end-to-end version of the Events Hub product. My role focused on creating a self-service, low-complexity user experience based on a user-centric approach—a design principle I had successfully applied in previous projects. I ensured alignment with business objectives and stakeholder requirements by collaborating closely with the Product Manager, Product Owner, Tech Lead, Design Leader, and the Events Hub team.
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In addition to my primary role, I actively participated as a member of the Design Chapter within the product team. I contributed to shaping design strategies and co-led the implementation of the Design System.
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This multifaceted role underscored my dedication to crafting exceptional user experiences, driving strategic innovation, and facilitating collaboration across teams, all of which collectively contributed to the successful realization of our impactful product.
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Timeline
2022-2022
Problem
statement
Users frequently reach out to support to express dissatisfaction with the usability of the platform, highlighting their difficulty in locating essential features.
This presents a significant challenge, as clients are more likely to churn when they lack confidence in their ability to effectively manage their business using the platform and are unaware of its full potential. Additionally, the challenge of effectively highlighting the comprehensive event management capabilities integrated into the API Platform adds to this concern.
High level
goal
The goal was to deliver a new version of the Events Hub product, proposing a meaningful and self-service experience that abstracted complexity and aligned with key indicators, including a new primary functionality mapped by the business.
What I was expecting to accomplish?
Empower users with autonomy by transforming complexity into simplicity through empathetic design and seamless interfaces.
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​Ensure adherence to the product roadmap, streamlining development through strategic component reuse, while maintaining consistency and usability across the platform.
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Guide users through product migration with clarity and empathy, ensuring they feel valued and easily adopt new features.
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Mapping business goals
The PM established OKRs, strategy, and migration plans to guide us. Additionally, monthly meetings with the entire product team were held to share project progress and update metrics. These meetings served as valuable checkpoints, ensuring alignment and providing opportunities for course correction as needed.
UX
Audit
To address user complaints regarding the current product, I screenshot the existing screens from prototype to construct a detailed screenflow, providing a comprehensive view of the product's flow and user experience. By interacting with the live production environment as a real user, I analyzed performance, usability, heuristics evaluated the consistency between the proposed design and the final version, and identified if there was any significant changes. These findings informed the discovery process, enabling a more thorough investigation and supporting data-driven decision-making for future improvements.
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Additionally, as the product lacked editable design files in Figma, I collaborated with designers from other products who shared their files. Later, I discovered how these materials were connected to the Sensedia UI library, which further streamlined and standardized the design process.
Welcome
Discovery
Conducting the discovery process proved instrumental for our project, allowing us to validate and discard hypotheses, mitigate biases, enhance our grasp of the value proposition, gain a clearer perspective on collaboration with other teams such as consulting, sales, and fellow product squads.
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As the discovery unfolded, we realized that we were operating within the Triple Diamond process. This understanding provided us with tools and momentum to successfully complete the first end-to-end version of the EVH 2.0.
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Board built in Miro and Figma.
Personas
We crafted two detailed personas representing our key users. These personas were developed based on internal profile data and market research, bringing us a step closer to understanding the needs, desires, and behaviors of our target customers.
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Throughout the discovery process, personas played a crucial role. They served as a reference, combined with data, for crafting the Value Proposition Canvas, mapping the User Journey, generating hypotheses, making decisions, and others.
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Those tools allowed us to make more informed decisions, ensuring that our product is user-centered from the outset
Data-Driven
To enrich our insights and guide the design process, we implemented Hotjar to capture behavioral data and Google Analytics for metrics on the EVH 'As Is' platform (in production). We briefly used User IQ before Hotjar, and NPS was employed to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty among our current users. We combined the data analysis with UX and business discovery, which highlighted the differentiating factors that would serve as the core of the platform and lead to significant improvements.
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Alignments with other departments, such as Sales and Customer Success, provided pertinent information for designing the user journey, aligning with our personas and business goals, thereby contributing to the action plan to guide users through the product migration in a friendly and seamless manner, while also sharing insights about our new proposed experience with these teams.
Brainstorming in workshops were extremely helpful in overcoming challenges.​
User testing
Transformative Feedback
Testing plan, results and next steps
Impactful
Changes
User testing proved invaluable in refining the EVH 2.0, as the feedback we collected played a pivotal role in cultivating a more intuitive user experience. This process also allowed us to align the EVH 2.0 more closely with our product's goals. Once the designs were reviewed with the Product Manager, I secured approval and proceeded to user testing, with support from Design Lead.
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We conducted user tests focused on tasks that users would need to perform within the new product. To facilitate this, I prepared a detailed testing plan and script. The test was built using a medium-fidelity prototype in Figma and conducted with volunteer clients as well as members of our internal team. I asked participants to register an event and observed their initial reactions, navigation difficulties, and challenges in performing basic tasks, such as locating the button to create a new event. To my surprise, the greatest difficulty was not with our new, robust component but with pre-existing, standardized components that were reused in the interface. These insights, along with others, significantly contributed to improving the overall usability of the product.
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The results were not only crucial for redesigning the Events Hub but also led to institutional improvements in our UI library, which later evolved into a Design System. This testing process became so valuable that we received active support from the Product Manager to secure more volunteers across the company. It even extended to Apix, where it was used as a method to collect feedback and evaluate potential clients. Furthermore, it became an experience I shared with my colleagues, helping us promote the adoption of user testing in other projects.
Delivery
​The delivery of the EVH 2.0 occurred in stages agreed upon with the team. Prioritizing the new product's core functionality was essential and done with constant alignment.
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Once we started delivering EVH 2.0, development promptly initiated implementation. Therefore, for the core delivery, it was important that we had already defined the new look and feel, structure, and interface elements to be included in the first high-fidelity version for approval. The Designer Chapter Design System, which had a base of Sensedia UI, made that possible, and in terms of structure, we indeed reused As Is components. We also stipulated some strategies in case any changes occurred during next stages.
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After approval, each part of the platform that was delivered separately according to priority had a respective handoff documentation. To finalize this project, a prototype of the Events Hub 2.0 core functionality flow was delivered.
Welcome
Handoff
I continuously refine our handoff process over time. Drawing from my experience with both task handoff and documentation, acquired through previous work and Design Ops certification, I prioritize applying best practices while remaining attentive to the needs of my team.
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To maintain consistency between the product and the supporting document, the tech writer from the team and I started a partnership to define terms, nomenclature, and descriptions that made sense both technically and for the experience we wanted to propose to our users. The definitions were incorporated into the design handoff.
My handoffs encompassed various aspects, including the new identity, approved UX deliverables, screen flows, screens, links, lists, and introduction of new components. Complementary to the handoff, regular alignment sessions with the product team, developers, and QA ensure that everyone is on the same page and provided an opportunity for collaboration.
Additionally, I made myself accessible to address any questions or concerns that may arise.
What we accomplish?
User Empowerment
By addressing user pain points through the application of UX and UI disciplines, my goal was to empower users with autonomy by reducing complexity and creating an intuitive experience.This was achieved through user testing, feedback collection, adherence to conventions, and UI heuristic principles, combined with discovery processes to mitigate risks and deliver meaningful improvements. These integrated insights informed decision-making and brought innovation and value to the event management ecosystem, enabling a seamless, self-service experience for users.
Design Efficiency
I actively co-led the development of our company’s design system, which now supports all products. This was achieved through intense collaboration within the design chapter, with practices like design critique, and externally with the development chapter leader and the marketing guild. Together with the development team, we established token standards, component behaviors, guidelines, and redefined the Sensedia UI library. Working with the marketing guild, we updated the product identity, aligning it with the new visual language approved by the CEOs. In the EVH project, the structured processes significantly enhanced high-fidelity design efficiency by enabling the reuse of components from the design system. To accelerate the design of EVH's specific features in Figma, I applied a componentization technique across files, eliminating redundant work and speeding up development. This approach allowed us to meet roadmap deadlines while maintaining consistency across the platform.
Friendly User Transition
Successfully transitioning users to a new experience requires clear and empathetic communication. We achieved this by studying user behavior through tools like user flows, task flows, user journeys, and monitoring, combined with our discovery material. These efforts resulted in the inclusion of solutions designed to support users during the transition.
This included introducing new features, simplifying integrations, and providing accessible support, all of which minimized disruptions and fostered user trust and adoption.
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To ensure a seamless migration, we implemented an onboarding process in the new version, including welcome messages that emphasized the benefits of the upgrade. Consistency was maintained across the navigation. I thoughtfully designed empty states that offered friendly and actionable recommendations for both new and current users. For current users, we focused on introducing new functionalities in a way that seamlessly integrated into their workflows. During our analysis, we also identified the opportunity to integrate a wizard system, guiding users through the product and helping them explore or reacquaint themselves with its features.
Result
It was a pleasure to work on the EVH project, I'm delighted to see that the legacy I've left behind is realized. Knowing that the EVH is contributing to innovation in the realm of event-driven architecture brings me great joy. The successful delivery of the project means that users can now enjoy the benefits it brings, and I'm proud to have been a part of making that happen.
In retrospect
Strategic Prototyping: Prototype has a lot of value, but it's important to understand when it's needed because a lot of effort goes into it. Prototyping should be strategic, serving as a tool for learning, refinement.
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Active Listening: Being in a product environment allows you to access a lot of information, but other departments such as sales, support, customer success, and others are extremely valuable sources of information. It's essential to approach them with ears always open to learn and understand how they contribute to making our product a success. Moreover, it is important to recognize that communication channels are often readily accessible, merely a message away.
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Knowledge Integration: Looking back, participating in a UX team centered on knowledge integration and experience sharing proved to be a transformative journey. It taught me the value of collaboration in establishing design standards that formed a strong foundation for our products. Through the chapter, co-leading the development of Sensedia's first Design System provided valuable insights into teamwork and cross-departmental alignment. These efforts, in collaboration with front-end developers, not only improved our processes but also delivered lasting benefits to all SaaS products.