Email Studio is the original product within ExactTarget prior to the acquisition by Salesforce. As such we had all of these capabilities and features that had been bolted onto it over time. After more than 10 years we decided we needed to finally streamline all of the ways to create and send within Email. This kicked off work on a new Creation Flow initially. Below is some of the discovery work, research, and design iteration we did to arrive at where the Creation Flow stands today.
My Role: UX Designer
Others on the project: Director of Product, UX Researcher, Engineering Lead, Business Analyst
Target Personas: Marketing manager and content producer
Main Challenges
1. Too many ways to create a message causing confusion and frustration
2. Lack of parity between these various workflows
3. Dated user interface that was inefficient
4. Various features existed elsewhere in our system and weren't readily available at time of creation
5. Current WYSIWIG editor is subpar and doesn't have space or features to use
Results
Time on Task
Reduced by 41%
Context Changes
Reduced by 30%
Screens
Reduced from 17 to 8
Early WHITEBOARD COLLAB w/PRODUCT AND ENG
We knew from a huge amount of data, both quantitative and qualitative, that there were a few core sections/tasks that needed to be accomplished in every message creation. So we started there.
Once we figured out these core sections we needed an interface and experience that brought these together in a cohesive and usable manner.
Targeted Personas
At Salesforce we had established personas that we used for any given project.
Mura (Marketing Manager)
Mura translates high-level strategies into campaign initiatives. She manages campaign project timelines and day to day operational activities. She is hands-on in the product, both setting up and monitoring campaigns.
Calvin (Content Producer)
Calvin ensures that cross channel marketing data is optimized and ready for campaign initiatives. He sets up filters and schedules messaging. He creates reports and dashboards for the team.
RESEARCH
After we had some basic concepts we tested these with users in contextual and moderated research sessions.
Main Takeaways
Having creation and sending all in one flow is not scalable and has far too much cognitive load for users.
Users liked having more visibility into where they stood in the process.
Users liked having a list of tasks to complete before sending.
The designs are in an early phase but there were mixed reactions to the new layout of the workflow.
User Journeys
I mapped out the users’ steps to show stakeholders how many screens, context changes, clicks, and general cognitive load was put on our users to go all over our system to complete the sending and creation of an email.
Visual Designs
