I am particularly proud of this project as within 2 weeks, my manager recognized my potential to understand the complexity of an automation platform and made me lead the design. I asked meaningful questions that helped us uncover every aspect of the user and business needs and helped the design and research team.
During the research phase, I participated in defining research goals, conducting user interviews, and crafting user journeys to understand pain points.
I then lead the design, created wireframes, and conducted usability tests that revealed a 30% decrease in task completion time.
Team
Product Designer (Ellie Zhou)
Researcher (Katy Thompson)
Product manager (Prisha)
CEO (Charmain Tan)
Timeline
4 months
Tools
Figma
I was selected to work with Quickdesk (located in Singapore) through a program at the University of Michigan called Design Clinic. Quickdesk had conducted a research and data analysis that revealed the need of an automation platform that compliments their CRM platform.
Quickdesk is a CRM that helps Sales professionals manage and communicate with their clients.
OVERVIEW
My Role
Product Designer (Lead)
Sales professionals often spend a lot of time on repetitive and time-consuming tasks, such as sending follow-up emails, and scheduling meetings.
PROBLEM
The Sales professionals communicate with the clients from receiving the lead through making the sale. This process is complex and it is very critical for sales Professionals to organize, manage, and communicate with the clients effectively in order to increase sales. CRM platform by Quickdesk is a B2B product used by Sales Professionals to manage client data and communicate with them.
To help the sales professionals communicate effectively with their leads and reduce the amount of time they spend on repetitive tasks.
OBJECTIVE
A platform that allows sales professionals to create customized automated workflows to suit different sales processes.
SOLUTION
PROCESS
How did we get there?
To be able to offer an effective solution, we first started with user research and market research. This helped us identify the workflows, key pain points and potential solutions.
Expert Interviews
03
User Interviews
08
Competitive Analysis
06
We also conducted market research to analyze CRM platforms similar to Quickdesk.
COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
We also conducted Competitive research and analyzed Salesforce, pipedrive, Close.io, Zapier, Jumper.ai on the features they offered and we can provide a platform that meets all the needs of Sales Professionals.
USER JOURNEY
This revealed 4 pain points faced by the Sales Professionals
After synthesizing the data collected, we created a journey map and identified the user pain points.
01
Too many communication channels
Sales Professionals had to communicate with their clients through a wide variety of applications like email, messages, WhatsApp, etc.
02
Monotonous repetitive work
Sales professionals often have the same workflow, get similar inquiries, and have to reply to common queries which is boring.
03
Difficult to match lead
The clients/customers have different types of inquiries which are difficult to match with the right person or in right time.
04
Delayed responses
Sales Professionals often have to rely on responses from the clients which results in delays and hence the loss.
REVISED OBJECTIVES
This led us to our solution to create a platform that allows the sales professionals automate their communication with two main objectives -
01
Making flow building faster
02
Making it easier to perform repititive tasks
DESIGN DECISIONS
01
Reducing options
1st iteration - Too many options
It took approx. 7 seconds for the users to find the action they wanted to add in their automation flow
2nd iteration - 6 options (categorized)
The users were able to find the desired action to be added in the workflow in less than 5 seconds.
02
Adding tasks to the flow
Iteration 1: Drag and drop
Great for fast interactions, but not accessible via keyboard and is prone to errors in complex workflows
Iteration 2: Click and add
More intuitive, flexible, and accessible
03
Sidebar to edit details
Iteration 1: Editing in workplace
Takes up space in the workflow, users unable to view the flow while editing tasks
Iteration 2: Sidebar for editing
Consistent place for editing, allows the users to view the overall flow while editing
04
Repeating tasks
Iteration 1: Copy/Paste the tasks
This required opening another file if the users were to copy tasks from another file
Iteration 2: Create a template and use anywhere on the platform
Enabled easy access to the templates created in any file, making flow building faster
Usability tests revealed that the time taken by sales professionals to complete the task is reduced by 30% and the platform is estimated to increase productivity by 36%.
IMPACT
DESIGN SYSTEM
LESSONS LEARNED
ACCESSIBILITY
While drag and drop seems very effective to reduce the number of clicks and time taken to perform a task, it is not accessible to users who can not use the mouse or drag objects precisely. Using clickable elements that can be focused using a keyboard make the platform much more accessible.
COLLABORATION
Involving all the stakeholders like the Product manager, developer, and users early in the design process avoids the need for redesigning due to different requirements and limitations by different stakeholders. I regularly sought advice from my fellow team members to ensure everyone is on the same page.