HOW IT ALL STARTED
SaaS Consulting Group set out to fix a problem. In their consulting engagements with many different companies, they noticed similar struggles among many Customer Success teams: a need for greater visibility, reporting, interaction tracking, and planning.
After building a custom solution and refining it in-action with operative teams, The Customer Experience App is ready to share with the world. They asked me to work with internal stakeholders to develop product summary and marketing materials.
Discover | Define | Ideate | Prototype + Refine
I applied the User Experience Design process in order to ensure that my designs were user-centered at each step, while simultaneously meeting all the company's objectives.
My role: UX, graphic design.
THE PROBLEM
SaaS Consulting Group's Customer Experience app will be listed on the Salesforce App Exchange so SaaSCG needs prospective buyers to understand what their product is, and how it will make their jobs easier.
Business Objectives
The Team: Company stake holders including the product manager, VP, and CEO.
Objective: Develop and create materials to: 1) highlight the key features 2) explain the app's value-add to organizations.
Success: For the project to be successful, prospective buyers will be quickly and directly informed of how the Customer Success App will make their Customer Success teams more effective.
SOLUTION
Create 1) a video and 2) a digital brochure to explain the product to potential buyers. The two-page brochure and 2-3 minute video will both include an introduction to the app, an explanation of its benefit to Customer Experience teams, and brief explanations of each key feature.
TRADE OFFS
Timeline: this project had an extremely quick turn around, so user testing was limited to testing by internal employees.
Competitive Analysis
To gain an understanding of the competitive landscape and identify opportunities, I conducted a competitive analysis of similar applications.
It became clear that competitors seemed to overvalue engaging content at the expense of professionalism, or overvalue professionalism at the expense of engagement and clear content. This project, then, should avoid both traps by taking a minimalist approach: only including essential information, presented in manner that is equal parts professional and engaging.
Style Discovery
I conducted a workshop with the product manager to explore the visual language the company uses. Through studying examples provided by stakeholders, and talking over style specifics, we established the following:
► The brochure should include: prominent photos, bold typography, the colors blue and orange, featured icons.
► The video should include: a level of energy that is engaging while maintaining professionalism, visual that complement the relevant messaging, logo colors, stock footage and pictures of people to boost visual interest.
Journey Map
To define more facets of the user's experience as well as identify existing opportunities, I created a journey map. This map shows initial contact through process of engagement, and into long term relationship with the organization. As you can see in the map below, I identified key interactions, as well as users feelings and motivations at each touch point. The map design is based on an original version by Carolyn Li-Madeo.
Persona
Using the research I gathered from stakeholders, I created a persona to describe the target customer. This archetype will help align efforts going forward, a necessary step to ensure the designs are user-centered, and account for the most pressing user needs.
To create the following persona, I considered relevant demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and needs-based attributes.
To show the opportunities available to the organization, I leveraged user stories. This helped clarify the role and necessary function of the brochure and video, as they relate to Andrew's experience specifically.
► As a director-level user, when I review this app's details page, I want to view the informational video and brochure so that I can assess whether this app has the functionality my customer success team needs to improve efficiency.
► As a director-level user, when I review this app's details page, I want to view the informational video and brochure so that I can assess whether this app is professional enough to warrant the price.
Low-Fidelity Sketches
To establish the hierarchy between content as I considered the information architecture of the designs, I sketched low-fidelity ideas for the brochure and the video.
One of my take-aways from this exercise is that a large hero image at the top of the brochure with information segmented into columns below is a very promising layout to accomplish the solution objectives.
Content Strategy
I translated the information we gathered up to this point into style decisions. This was done in the following areas through the identified deliverable, shown earlier:
► Goals: Persona
► Competition: Competitive analysis
► Context: Journey map
► Motivations: User stories
Style Direction: Typography & Color
Using insights from the Discovery and Definition phases, including business objectives and stakeholder interviews, I made style decisions.
► For the brochure, I chose versatile, professional typography, and colors that complemented the company logo.
► For the video, I chose more stylized primary font in order to catch the viewer's attention while not being distracting. As with the brochure, I drew color inspiration from the company logo and limited the color palette to a greater extent to add boldness.
Style Direction: Images & Iconography
As seen in the persona and customer journey map, establishing credibility quickly is essential to meet the user's discovery goals. With that in mind, I gathered images and iconography that would communicate professionalism and expertise while complementing the surrounding style elements.
High-Fidelity Review and Revisions
With the product manager, I reviewed the high-fidelity designs. He responded that, "Visually - I like the layout/feel." He suggested a number of copy changes, which we worked out together.
The product manager suggested changes to how product demonstrations were presented in the video, and I incorporated the feedback.
Final Product
After three rounds of revisions to fine tune the design and copy, the product manager sought internal review of the brochure and video. I was very glad to hear positive feedback on both items.
"We love the final product" - Product Manager
FINAL BROCHURE:
FINAL VIDEO:
I learned several important lessons in the project. First, taking the time to finish copy writing early in the project can prevent delays later in the process. Second, testing with users outside the organization takes more time to plan than I expected, so this should be accommodated in the timeline-planning stage of the project to ensure it happens. This would be even more vital for UX-specific projects.
To determine the success of this project, insights should be studied. Usage data, subscriber statistics, customer feedback, and how many users view the app page compared to those who make a decision to purchase, are each valuable in assessing whether the brochure and video effectively communicated the value and functionality of the Customer Experience App to customers.
