Endate – to always be on time
BRIEF
My brief for this project was to build a new B2B SaaS Web App, that would be useful to multiple organizations, to help professional teams get their work done more effectively
team
Individual
Role
- User Research
- UI design
Duration
2 weeks (Ironhack Bootcamp)
Deliverables
- High-fidelity prototype of the MVP for desktop
- Roadmap for next 2 post-launch phases
- Design Report
research
The first step was to find an effective methodology for conducting research, leading to concrete results. Not having in mind from the beginning a target company or a topic on which to question myself, I started with a quick interview
Methodology
The first approach was through a preliminary and exploratory interview
The data collected thanks to the first interview began to guide me towards a common topic:
Are small companies able to organize their workflow as efficiently as possible?
Interviews
At this point I could identify three other companies to interview on the same topic that during the preliminary interviews had seemed relevant:
Thanks to these detailed interviews and the ability to closely observe the performance of certain tasks, through a contextual inquiry, I had the opportunity to know the processes and methodologies used by the companies interviewed regarding their business organization, project management and how this is carried forward and presented to the client.
Interviews findings
The data collected through the interviews led me to these interesting findings:
Some interviewees said:
- “The company is growing fast so I need to be more organized with everything or the team wont be able to complete all their tasks”
- “I always have to ask the team to share the files or tell me in the chat how the project steps go, it’s a waste of time!”
BENCHMARKING
The interviews also introduced me to the software that already exists in the market dealing with project management, time tracking or business organization, and the software most used by my interviewees are the following:
The most used by the interviewees are Trello and Monday, but the users I interviewed claimed that they did not find the solution to their problems in using these software
Layout analysis
Insights
Research in its entirety has helped me to understand that small growing companies struggle a lot to manage the entire workload with a clear and effective workflow and need to rely on external software that, however, because of the features they use, are not able to respond totally to their needs
PROBLEM DEFINITION
At this point I had all the data needed to define the problem that the interviews and benchmarking helped me to collect
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Due to missed deadlines, clients are unhappy and profit have decreased. Deadlines are not met because there is no communication between project managers and the rest of the team, the daily activities of each team member are not well explained, the team does not have an overview of the entire project process, and often new information is not communicated in time, causing a delay in the process.
USER COMPANY
Kickstart is a Marketing Agency based in Barcelona. It is a small growing company that has set itself the goal of increasing more than double its staff in the next quarter
USER PERSONA (CEO)
Let me introduce you to Jennifer, the CEO of Kickstart
goals:
- Better organize the company flow due to the expected growth in the next month
- Do not waste time and therefore profit
- Find new clients
- Increase profits
needs:
- Find a way for everyone to communicate efficiently
- Have a broad view on all projects and clients also working remotely
- Increase the efficiency and the speed of information
USER PERSONA (Project manager)
Let me introduce you to Ryan, the Project Manager of Kickstart
goals:
- Deliver all the projects on time
- Do not waste time
- Release high quality projects
- Satisfy clients
needs:
- Know what the other members of the team are doing
- Find all the information about the projects in one place
- Track all his tasks and deadlines
- Share files and information easily
ideation
Once the problem and users are defined, it’s time to start thinking about how to help them find an effective solution
What features do users need?
Feature benchmarking
And what about the competitors?
Solution
Once I understood what features my users needed, I could start thinking about how to put them into practice, organizing an architecture of the web app that was as simple and intuitive as possible
user flow
And here is the solution I designed of how Ryan Scott, project manager of Kickstart, should navigate within the web app to monitor projects and to reassign expired tasks
Navigation and tree testing
Web App navigation needed to be simple but complete to help users perform all the tasks needed to do their job efficiently without wasting time. And this was my first draft:
Navigation
Tree testing
Tree testing helped me confirm my hypothesis with an average success between 80% and 70%
scenario
Kickstart just closed a contract with a very important client, Provogue, a chain of wedding dress stores. The contract consists in the launch of the new ecommerce, google campaigns to sponsor it, a redesign of the logo and the realization of a strategy and editorial plan for the main social channels.
Ryan Scott, project manager, will monitor the progress of the project and how the team is handling the tasks he has assigned, reassigning them to other team members if necessary, or sending reminders to the team, to avoid not meeting deadlines.
Jennifer, the CEO will also monitor the entire progress of the project.
PROTOTYPE
Now it’s design time! Starting from naming, branding, design system up to the complete prototype
DESIGN SYSTEM
Dashboard
Project - brief
Project - tasks
Project - shared files
Project - administration
Team
Reassign tasks
Design iterations and usability testing results
It was a long process the one that get me to the final prototype you just saw. I conducted two rounds of usability testing that led me to modify and then improve the prototype up to the final one
ITERATION 1
ITERATION 2
ITERATION 3
How my design solves the problem
ROADMAP
So, now that Endate it’s launched, what are the next steps?
Between the first and the second quarter my goal is to work on marketing to create engagement with the new app and to make it known to new users offer a free software setup. Then develop new features and at the and of next year launch the mobile app
If you arrived till here reading...
thank you!!
