PUREPROFILE
SELF-SERVICE AUDIENCE BUILDER
I joined Pureprofile as Lead UX Designer. Working very closely with the Product team I would work on the experience strategy: what we were doing, why we were doing it, whom we're doing it for and how we would do it.
Heading up my design team while also forming and leading a larger design tribe across other areas of the business everything that launched for B2B and B2C would need my attention.
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My holistic approach is tricky to frame in a portfolio piece so I have chosen a recent important B2B initiative as a case study that hopefully will convey my approach to experience design and problem-solving.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in these case studies. The information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pureprofile.
Self-service
As part of our ongoing strategy, we defined self-service as a key pillar in our approach.
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We were very much a managed service, where our clients required a dedicated project manager to help them define an audience and launch a campaign. With self-service as our north star we defined a brand new, easy-to-use and intuitive Audience Builder as a key deliverable.
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I defined our target audience as very experienced survey and data professionals who understand the complexities through to anyone who may want to conduct any kind of research with real humans.
Understand the problem
One of the first things I try to do is understand the problem we are trying to solve. There are a few techniques to do this but all involve good old fashioned research and asking questions.
You need to research who your users are. Observe them either trying to solve the problem or interacting with the product. These observations should happen in lab conditions and also in the users day-to-day life if possible. What devices are people to use to access your product (people behave very differently on their phone compared to their laptop)? What time are they going to access your product (on the train, at home, at work etc)?
Audience Builder
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What type of product are we designing?
An embedded function of an existing product
Who are the main users?
Internal Project Managers and external researchers - from very experienced campaign builders to people who may only be doing basic research
Where is the product being used?
In a professional B2B capacity in an office or pro set-up
Why do they need it to exist?
To build an audience to partake in surveys and campaigns quickly and easily - decrease internal support burden (time) - Simplify campaign creation process
How will it be used?
As a premium part of our product suite on a desktop computer
Conduct interviews and surveys, whatever is necessary to build a robust picture of your potential users.
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I use many techniques to define the problem including empathy maps, journeys, workshops, paper cut-outs and even role playing!
As this initiative was focussed on updating and overhauling a current experience I did a full audit of where we are today.
It was actually a very frustrating experience. It involved opening and drilling down into at least three different applications within our product suite. Having to understand incredibly complicated concepts then pulling it all together in another application.
It was a result of a poorly thought through experience plus a whole lot of legacy issues.
Through workshops, observation, analytics and anecdotal feedback I mapped out the flows with a focus on the most desirable and elegant experience - here you should be uncovering those pain points that currently exist.
Most of the time these are completely unknown and it's our job to discover them.
Competitor analysis
I conducted indepth competitor analysis. There are a few companies out there that offer similar services so it's key to discover what they and map their experience offering.
Sketching and whiteboarding
Sketching is such a powerful way to quickly communicate ideas that in my opinion, it is still unmatched in its ability to create disposable low fidelity designs. I sketch a lot. Whether it is in my notepad getting my ideas recorded or on a whiteboard to communicate a new type of interface you will generally find me with a pen or pencil in my hand. It allows for less preciousness around any design, everything is so much more disposable in this format and that is exactly what you want at this stage. It also encourages broad feedback ("How do I get there?") as opposed to narrow feedback ("I don't like that font") which again is exactly what is required at this time.
For the last year it's been harder to sketch and whiteboard in person so I've been an avid user of Freehand and Miro to get ideas out there.
Wireframes
I tend to combine my early wireframes with my projected flow of the product. They inform a rough guide for the layout. They should be clear and simple, no visual design or aesthetics here. They can serve as a good conduit with the stakeholders, signing off on placement/flow (broad feedback) etc rather than getting bogged down in font choice (narrow feedback) etc. Include lots of comments and annotations on them.
Testing & validating
How many test participants you involve, how closely your test participants match your actual users, and how many iterations of testing you run are all decisions shaped by budget and time constraints.
Usability testing is straightforward enough that anyone can - and should - experience running one. Being in the same room (or Zoom call!) while someone uses your product is a powerful trigger for creating empathy with users.
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I use many different techniques to test and validate. These can be workshops using drawings, paper-cutouts, prototypes and prod builds through to diary studies, remote testing and surveys.
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I wrote comprehensive reports detailing every interaction the subjects experienced. I created a scoring system and prioritised each finding and logged them back into Jira.
Paper cut-outs are always one of my favourite workshops to run. They are fun, engaging and rewarding. As paper is very tactile people respond in different and surprising ways to pixels on a screen.
They can literally move things where they want them and even create new elements on the fly.
UI design & application
It's at this point that I will engage my UI visual designers. Now we have a pretty solid rough approximation of the experience we're trying to achieve it's time to apply the UI. I initially conducted a design audit to establish what we have today and what we need to future-proof us. I always establish a living design style guide which should evolve and mature as your product does. Following an atomic approach, we pretty much have the toolkit to meet any challenge.
Handover & development
Audience Builder was a huge piece of work that would take many sprints to build. Now, we could shut down and spend 3 months building this monster but because we practice true Agile and have to show value after every 2 week sprint, this wasn't an option.
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Which reminds me of an old UX joke…
What this essentially means is that we need to break down this huge vision into smaller pieces. What makes sense to work on first and integrate it into our product suite?
So working closely with the Product team this is exactly what I did. Each piece was self-contained and makes sense with the legacy items that came before but also can be seen as a clear stepping stone to everything that will come after but crucially has to work and seamlessly fit.
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As the person with the vision I was responsible for writing the epics and tasks for this initiative.
Delivery
After a few sprints we delivered the complete V1 of Audience Builder. It was received incredibly well and marks a high watermark for future projects.
