Comprehensive Usability Overhaul

Company
Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) Client for Insight

Role
Lead UX Designer

Collaborated with

  • Executive Leadership and Stakeholders

  • Product Owner

  • Front & Back End Engineers

Context

This product was in the process of being rebuilt to modernize the architecture but lacked user-centered research or design to inform critical interactions , causing lots of pain points for users.

Problem

Our client's team faced big challenges: a recently appointed Product Owner who was new to the role and a development team with several newly onboarded members.

They were overwhelmed with a tight end-of-year deadline to make significant improvements to the product and struggled to articulate, prioritize, and implement crucial UX improvements.

Approach

Created a project kickoff board

  • Aligned on desired outcomes and artifacts

  • Determined milestones

Kick off plan to drive alignment

Interviewed internal stakeholders and executive leadership 1-1

  • Learned critical background on the product and users

  • Identified key process and product pain points

  • Learned more about overall business problems and goals

Conducted user research

  • Asked open ended questions

  • Had users share their screen and walkthrough how they use the product

  • Saved questions around specific features until the end so as not to bias them

  • Learned how they're using the product today and where their greatest pain points are

  • Delved deeper into pressing problems to inform prioritization

Interview script and notes

Synthesized research into key findings

  • Created a comprehensive affinity map, making note of common themes across user types

  • Translated those themes into key findings to inform prioritization and share with stakeholders and team members

  • Worked with product owner to break findings out into projects

Affinity map and relevant findings

Conducted workshop to prioritize work

  • Facilitated a T-shirt sizing exercise with development and product owner to determine level of effort for each project

  • Prioritized projects with product owner and development input using an Impact/Effort Matrix

  • Created an action plan to present to stakeholders and executive leadership

Workshop exercises

Presented findings and prioritization plan to stakeholders

  • Pooled findings around prioritized work to support my plan of action

  • Marked up screenshots of existing software to present core problems and key areas to improve upon to stakeholders

  • Received approval to move forward based on presentation

Marked up screenshot of live software

Rapid explorations in Figma

  • Put together quick explorations in Figma

  • Shared internally with PO, stakeholders, subject matter experts, and dev for quick feedback

  • Incorporated internal feedback to edit mocks and prep for usability testing

Figma explorations

Conducted usability testing with customers

Conducted a usability test using the following methods:

  • 5 second check to test visual hierarchy

  • Task based exercises where users would talk through their thought process while attempting to complete core tasks

  • Screen-by-screen breakdown for additional feedback

Mockup from usability test

Made edits and share findings with crossfunctional team

  • Incorporated findings to improve workflow

  • Discovered other ways we could expand bulk actions in the future

  • Adjusted language for greater clarity

  • Broke work out into even smaller increments based on feedback from development

Breaking work out with development

Work in progress

We continued to iterate and work on prioritized projects based off our initial discovery.

During my time with this client, I kicked off 2 additional projects with this team to set them up for success upon leaving for a new opportunity. I also put together comprehensive documentation for my colleague who backfilled my position.

Additional workshops

Takeaways

  • Leadership and stakeholders were receptive to our action plan and roadmap for the remainder of the year, empowering me to dive into critical UX problems immediately.

  • Stakeholders were skeptical of the usability test I put together. I met with them afterwards to talk through their concerns, which I discovered came from wanting to know more details ahead of time—not just an overview, but the methods I planned to use and why.

  • Taking the time to meet with them established an even greater trust between our teams. As a result, I improved transparency around my processes while holding my ground as the resident expert in UX and Product strategy.

  • By helping them identify, prioritize, and break down key projects, as well as establish regular communication around our strategies, processes and methods, I established a strong relationship with our client across their entire team, setting the stage for future success.