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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No access to the original design files, only the prototype.
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Rebrand being made simultaneously
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Time constrain to do MVP launch
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Limited access to production
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Lack of user data
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Product with high complexity
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Integration with other products​
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Platform migration plan
Impact
My role
At Sensedia, I held the position of Product Designer on the Events Hub team, tasked with delivering an end-to-end MVP version of the Events Hub product. My role involved orchestrating a user-centric approach focusing on self-service experience that aligned with business objectives and stakeholder requirements. I collaborated closely with the Product Manager, Product Owner, Tech Lead, and Design Leader.
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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, our inability to effectively showcase the comprehensive event management capabilities integrated into the API Platform compounds this issue.
High level
goal
The goal was to deliver a new, end-to-end version of the Events Hub product, proposing a meaningful and self-service experience, abstracting the complexity and aligning it with indicators, including a new primary functionality mapped by the business.
What I was expecting to accomplish?
Enhance Usability
Of course. Addressing the pain points of our users by empathizing with them through UX Disciplines, combined with efforts to understand where the complexity of the current platform lies. My plan was to go the extra mile to deliver improvements for users that they didn't know they wanted or needed, thus enabling them to achieve autonomy.
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Component Reuse
I was aiming to expedite the design and development process without compromising user experience or requirements by reusing components from Sensed UI library, only those that do not compromise usability. This mindset allow me to dedicate time to achieve significant improvements while maintaining consistency across the platform.
Promote a friendly user transition
When transitioning users to a new experience, it's crucial to communicate the changes effectively, but it can also be friendly. Users should feel valued and informed throughout the process, understanding that their needs and preferences have been taken into account. By guiding users through the transition, we can minimize disruptions and maximize adoption of the new product.
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.
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
UX
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 MVP.
UsabilityTesting
Usability tests proved invaluable in refining the MVP, as the feedback we collected played a pivotal role in cultivating a more intuitive user experience. This process also allowed us to align the MVP more closely with our product's goals.
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Handoff
We 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. For this reason, I sought support from our team's technical writer to incorporate relevant technical terms into our features descriptions.
My handoffs encompassed various aspects, including the new identity, approved UX deliverables, screen flows, 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. Additionally, I made myself accessible to address any questions or concerns that may arise.
Crafting the solution
To enrich our insights and guide the design process, we implemented Hotjar to capture behavioral data, NPS to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty, and Google Analytics for metrics on the EVH As Is platform (in production). We combined the results with the UX and business discovery, which provided insight into the differentiating factors that would serve as the core of the platform and significant improvements, validated through usability testing.
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Alignments with other areas provided pertinent information for designing the user journey, aligning with our personas and business goals, thereby contributing to the action plan to achieve the objective of the friendly transition. Brainstorming in workshops were extremely helpful in overcoming challenges.
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The MVP delivery occurred in stages agreed upon with the team. Prioritizing the design of 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 MVP end-to-end was delivered.
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 teams such as sales, support, customer success, and others are extremely valuable sources of information as well. 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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UX Chapter
Participating in a UX team characterized by knowledge integration and sharing experiences to define standards was a profoundly enriching experience. These defined standards set a solid foundation for our products. Through the chapter, I had the opportunity to co-lead the development of Sensedia's first Design System. Our collaborative efforts with the front-end developers accelerated the adoption of improvements benefiting all SaaS products.