Context
Roles & Timeline
As a freelance Product Designer, I supported a startup in creating a SaaS talent management solution from January to May 2022.
Challenges
Difficulties in the workplace: Some employees struggle to find meaning in their actions and to step back throughout the year. Managers may also find it difficult to track their progress and provide effective guidance.
My challenges were:
- Reinventing the management experience in the company: Framing the emerging project and anticipating key issues.
- Homepage & Navigation: How to transform a few isolated features into a functional, simple, and innovative ecosystem? The challenge was to clearly present all the features from the homepage.
- Features: How to facilitate complex mental processes? My goal was to design features that enable employees and managers to:
- Conscientiously define their professional goals (see "Goals" feature).
- Learn from their experiences and track their progress (see "Experience" feature).
- Onboarding: How to make the adoption of a SaaS software natural? I designed an onboarding process to encourage users to interact with the application.
Design process
Here is an overview of my process:
- Applied Object Oriented UX methodology to define and anticipate the app’s architecture, features, interactions, and overall navigation.
- Defined workflows (triggers and actions) for automated task management.
- Analyzed stakeholders and created a moodboard to inspire and define the visual branding.
- Conducted competitive analysis of web app onboardings (Slack, Hubspot, Adobe Photoshop, Notion, Todoist, etc.) to identify best practices and discard less effective ones.
- Defined the onboarding strategy and key success factors to implement.
- Created low and high-fidelity wireframes, mockups, and prototypes, iterating with the client.
Results
I. Homepage & navigation
Automated Task Management
To guide users from the homepage, I designed a task management feature that allows for:
- Automatically prioritizing tasks
- Indicating the progress status of processes
- Reducing mental load
Dashboard & Gamification
To keep users engaged each time they log in, I created a dashboard that:
- Displays personalized information and facilitates decision-making.
- Incorporates gamification principles (goals, progress bars, etc.) to encourage frequent use.
Direct Navigation
To provide more direct access to features (reducing clicks and load times), I recommended a single-level navigation using a sidebar menu and filtered search within a table.
Visual Design for Clarity
To avoid visual overload in the dashboards, we selected only the essential KPIs, presented with simple charts. I also developed a modern visual identity with rounded and soft elements, using the color orange thoughtfully to avoid any negative connotations.
II. Feature interaction design
Reducing Complexity
Tesler's Law states that a certain amount of complexity is inevitable in any system. To ease the mental complexity of processes, I:
- Simplified the "SMART" and "STAR" management methods.
- Created user flows with a minimal number of steps, while avoiding making these features too abstract or overly simplistic.
End-to-End Guidance
To anticipate user interactions and behaviors, I:
- Designed multiple ways to use and connect the "Goals" and "Experiences" features, allowing them to function partially or fully, in either direction.
- Focused on micro-interactions by creating confirmation and congratulatory messages for each action, while guiding users to the next step.
III. Design of a concise, interactive, and adaptable onboarding
Interactivity & Contextualization
Traditional onboarding methods like “Materials” (video tutorials, FAQs, etc.) lack interactivity. Users no longer want to read or watch theory before diving into the experience. Therefore, I designed an onboarding process that:
- Encourages direct interaction with the application.
- Guides users based on their context and location within the interface.
Gamification & checklist
To prompt immediate action, I created an onboarding checklist:
- Incorporating gamification principles, such as a progress bar.
- Starting with a simple, quickly achievable task to demonstrate the satisfying effect of a completed checklist.
Free learning pace
I proposed a free and concise onboarding process:
- The user can exit the onboarding and return at any time using a dedicated button.
- The checklist and onboarding journey focus only on key actions to avoid overwhelming the user.
Empty stages & Tooltips
I designed empty stages to indicate areas that the user needs to fill with their actions. I also integrated tooltips permanently to provide continuous assistance outside the onboarding process.
