Research: Shadowing
This starting point of research was very informative for my own purposes as a new UX Designer on the team. I used this session to shadow an orgvue consultant with a client when they were using the Hub in a natural environment. This was very useful as I didn't understand the full end to end process of consultants and clients using the Permissions feature of the Hub. I used this time to take notes and observe the process.
initial product
The initial journey users took was very confusing and unclear after the initial shadowing sessions that took place. In the above and below screenshots, the users are guided to create "ABAC rules", which was configured in a table.
TIME and effort required to deliver permissions
The above stats were provided by the PM working on the Hub.
Average clients implemented per month: 5
Average number of days spent on permissions: 7.25
Actual days spent per month on permissions: 5 x 7.25 = 36.26
Potential days spent per month on permissions: 5 x 1 = 5
It was clear that the amount of time being spent on permissions was way too long. From a UX perspective, the goal was to make the permissions journey quicker to complete, as well as more concise and easier to understand for the user.
Research: User journey mapping
A starting point to truly understand how users currently establish permissions in the Hub was to do some user journey sessions with current users. A user flow shows the steps a user takes to achieve an objective in your product. I did this to see how users engage with the product, and compared with other users to see where the feature had opportunities for improvement and where we could enhance the journey even more. The product manager and I completed these user journey sessions with 4 key users to align what was being done similarly and what areas were being called out as pain points.
Understanding pain points & OBSErVATIONS
During the user journey sessions, several pain points and observations were made to enhance the user journey.
Research: REMOTE Design sprint
During the early phases of research, I facilitated a design sprint with key developers who had been working on the product for a significant amount of time. I was given limited time to run these sprints, so had to keep these sessions short and sweet. Over a week of scattered sessions, I aligned the team by presenting the research completed so far and went over the current user journey, pain points, and different personas involved. We completed several workshops, laid out in the following structure:
-Lightning talks
-"How might we" exercise
-Affinity mapping
-Crazy 8's
-Storyboarding
-Prototyping
-User testing
The design sprint produced several ideas to begin diving into for enhancing the Permissions feature, and was a great way to get started in testing new ideas for the Hub.
Iterating and validating new user flows
DESIGN
Using ideas created from the design sprint and the initial user research I began mocking up designs and concepts to be tested. Our UX team at Concentra had an internal framework which assisted in creating hi-fi mockup designs quickly in sketch. I iterated through these designs multiple times with the PM, engineering team, and other UX designers to ensure we aligned in what we were trying to produce and I had the correct information involved.
USER TESTING & FEEDBACK
Using Axure, I created a prototype to get the new ideas accross, testing with 5 users based in the UK & US to understand if the designs were heading in the right direction and users understood new concepts introduced.
Feedback was mixed, but mostly positive. Unfortunately by this time, UX resource was pulled off this project until further notice.
Outcomes & REFLECTIONS
Unfortunately, due to lack of engineering resource on the team, this project has come to a stopping point. As a workaround, the consultants took my designs and research to inform their documentation that is being used in the interim until work gets started again on Permissions. From the work I've done, the senior consultant running these projects on the Hub says that the Permissions journey went from a total of 5.5 days to complete to 2.5, which is over 50%.
Often in the world of UX, it is disappointing when situations arise where you have done a lot of work on a project and it doesn't get picked up. I however feel that there are several positives to this project, as from the feedback it was clear that I improved the usability, aligned the team on what the goal is for the Permissions feature during the design sprint, and lastly got a better understanding for what users want and need. A lot of research and work has gone into enhancing the Permissions feature in the Hub. Though it has not been implemented yet, this project displays a lot of my skills as a UX designer and has definitely been a learning experience for me.
Stuff happens! We sometimes have to roll with the punches and take it as another learning experience.
