Hey!
I'm Himani Singh
UX/UI Designer & Illustrator.
Mar 2020 - Feb 2021
Manaze 5.0: Task Management Software
Case study of introduction of User experience design in the existing version of the product and automation of flows with the help of marketing department.
Brief
Redesign the business management software based on the analysis of the version 4.0 and user feedback to make its experience intuitive enough for the market.
Product Understanding​
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The product is a business management software which is being used in-house for usability testing. It's a tool that helps multiple departments manage their main functions from HR management to financial management in just one product. For some departments, the use of manaze made their tasks of data collection easier and for others it contributed to more time consumption than their traditional methods or excel sheets.
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- Designed by a team of developers and stakeholders
- A feedback survey is taken for every version among all departments. Next versions are launched based on user feedback
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Competitive Analysis​
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The competitive analysis was done in order to see where our product stands right now. The market has a range of business management tools similar to manaze which either provide a suite of products for financial management, task management and project management or just CRM focused tools. We did not focus on one or two competitors but portions of a lot of tools for the analysis of how other brands are handling the departments. Just to name we can count ZOHO, oracle suite and freshworks.
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Goals
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- Automation of flows taking place on other platforms
- Reduce time the user spends on the tool
- Relatable terms
- Build Trust
- Secure Data
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Pain Points​
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- Carrying out tasks using manaze is Time consuming
- Logging their tasks is Time consuming
- Navigation: complex and vague
- No Trust: Users from departments like sales, HR and expense choose Excel over the product in a fear of losing data
- Confusing terms for headers or tabs
Structure
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The organisation had 7 Departments each divided into similarly significant submodules. The following study has been done to explain the process used for each department flow with the help of submodule 'marketing'.
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Department: Marketing
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This department is responsible for the promotions and campaigning of the products & services of the company. This department helps get contacts and leads which are further nurtured by the sales team in order to turn them into potential customers.
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Understanding
Marketing team consists of Marketing head, researchers/miners and campaign manager
Campaign Creation
Sales, strategists and marketing heads decide the target for the next campaign. The target details include:
- Geographical location
- Employee Size
- Field/Target Indutry
- Target Revenue potential by the end
- No. of miners required for the campaign
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Mining
It's the process where researchers find/collect contacts of companies based on the target details.
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Email Campaigns
Email chains with a particular format is sent in a set interval gap
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Channels
Channels are the medium through which the campaign is proceeding, are the contacts received from mining, through manaze email feature/woodpecker or through social media platforms
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Response Analysis
This is done by the manager who further marks them as Future prospects, MQL and dead.
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Prospects
Prospects are the contacts which are given to the sales team to work on because there could be a chance of them turning out to be customers.
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MQL
Marketing Qualified Leads are the potential customers which can be further taken up by the sales team to convert into customers based on their process.
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User Interviews​
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Several interviews of the supervisors to the junior level employees of the marketing team was done.
- Opportunity to empathise at different levels based on tasks
- Insight on the miscommunication of different levels
Questionnaire
Questionnaire based on the understanding of the flow.
Interview
Interview with marketing head for deeper insights on the flow
Analysis
Based on the interview, the flow is defined and analysed for gaps.
Interview round 2
Interview for the clarity of gaps observed in the flow.
Stakeholder Interviews
Researcher and Manager
Approval Meeting
Meeting with the team for the final flow approval
Quotes from Users
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"I get mails regarding the requirement of a new Campaign"
- Mr. Kartik (Marketing Head)
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"When i create a contact by mistake, its difficult for me to find the edit or delete option so i mark those leads/contacts as UQL"
- Mr. Ashok (Researcher from Mining Team)​
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"Manaze has the emailing feature but we prefer to use woodpecker and others to carry out and keep track of the email campaigns "
- Project Manager
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Ways to go forward​
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1. Workflow
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Challenging the market products with the new workflow method of finishing tasks. The product was first seen as a task management software.
- Workflow method brings all the tasks of an employee of a particular dept at a single screen
- Workflows are threads of work which are assigned to other users or assigned to oneself.
- Example, a marketing head can create a workflow of the type marketing and subtype campaign. That campaign can be assigned to the manager who can further create child workflows of marketing type and mining subtype. These can be further assigned to the mining team.
- Suggested to explore till the end by the stakeholder
- Waterfall Method
Goals
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- All Tasks as active workflows in one screen
- Easier Tracking of tasks
- Creating multiple workflows for a person for each of their daily task in order to help them track which stage the workflow is in currently.
- This focuses on removing the dashboard concept. All the data is saved in the closed or active workflows. and can be accessed through the task easily
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Pain Points
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- More dependancy on every individual
- The concept is similar to branching so the end level structure can be extremely complex in bigger modules
- New Concept will take time for users to adapt
- Filters become a core to this concept and need to be carefully listed
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Use Cases​
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Based on the Final Flow, list of use cases were listed down and refined step by step.
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01. User can Schedule a meeting for Target details.
02. User can create a campaign workflow
03. User can assign workflow
04. User can log progress in the campaign
05. User can accept or reject the campaign workflow
06. User can log progress in the campaign
07. User can accept or reject the campaign workflow
08. User can view the target details
09. User can create subworkflow
10. User can assign multiple subworkflow
11. User can accept or reject the campaign workflow
12. User can add contacts in the form of subworkflow
13. User can attach file to contacts
14. User can add contacts in bulk
15. User can add details via suggested Fields if the same contact exists
in another campaign
16. User can assign the contacts to Arvind
17. User can receive the contacts
18. User can download the .csv file of the contacts
19. User should send file to woodpecker and start email Campaign
20. User can mark contacts' status as Emails sent
21. User can filter the unmailed contacts
22. User can receive responses through woodpecker
23. User can mark contacts with negative responses Lost
24. User can mark contacts with positive responses MQL
25. User can mark Unresponsive contacts Prospects
Flow
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Journey of the 'workflow' started by the sales to assign to the marketing team.
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On the stakeholders request, IA was developed out of the Use cases on excel. It was seen that adapting to infographics and charts are not the easiest for the people who are only familiar with scanning spreadsheets.
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Information Architecture​
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As Use cases are the description of how a user will be carrying out a task and what they will see in the system. The use cases created in the last step were segregated and categorised based on
- Persona: The type of user doing the action
- Stage: The main task
- User case
- Insight/Input/CTA: In the current screen, the kind of information the user sees (Is it an insight, if he/she has to input or if there is some CTA)
- Fields: Details on the fields present on the screen(if they are dynamic or static)
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Lowfi Wireframe Iterations
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Workflow of Marketing head (Kartik) from receiving a task to assigning subtaks and keeping track.
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Marketing head Receives Marketing campaign workflow
He views details
He schedules the task for later
Task is scheduled
At the scheduled time task is received in the active section
He Assigns subworkflow of the task to the Mining team
Assigned successfully
Prompt to log efforts of the task to help the
analytics of the employee performance
Progress logged
Successfully logged
From the Sent > Active tab, he can keep a track of the task progress
Usability Testing
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Meeting with the marketing team to check concept acceptance. Based on the presentation of low-fi wireframes feedback was taken:-
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- As tracking for single individual becomes easier, on broader level visibility is sacrificed
- Loss of time when one of the node is late in assigning task
- More time consumed in assigning the work than the work itself
- Dashboards are a core part of analytics and reporting
- Data collection not available
- Learning curve: New Concept will take time for users to adapt
- Users seemed confused and were ready to compromise and go back to version 4 even with its lack of smooth experience
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Beta version was developed and given to the product team for user testing
- Too many active workflows for people on the supervisor level
- Overwhelming home page
- Unproductive vibe as tasks never seem to end
- Too many tabs to keep track of
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Conclusion​
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The workflow concept seemed to have worked well for the employee module where the branching is less complex and the user gets a clearer visibility of their daily progress related tasks. The scope of the concept has been reduced to just one module and will be worked upon in the next version if a clearer direction is introduced.
2. Traditional Approach of Department Task wise management
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Department wise segregation with separate modules for their daily tasks(Employee Module), analytics/reporting, Dashboard of the data.
Goals
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- Simple/easy to understand Navigation
- Less dependancy
- Agile method
- Known, adaptable and relatable concept to the users
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Pain Points
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- Individual Task Tracking
- Complex input of enormous data
Use Cases
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In some complex departments even scenarios/Usage examples were created and documented along with the use cases in order to validate and analyse if any use cases have been missed.
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01. User should be able to see leads of all subsidaries & units
02. User should be able to assign Campaign owner with targets
03. User should be able to view, add and edit channels
04. User can create marketing campaigns
05. User should be able to assign campaign to the email marketing team
06. User be able to receive campaigns and assign it to multiple miners
07. User should be able to check and analyse status of the email campaigns
08. User should be able to add and edit contacts to the campaign
09. User should be able to upload contacts in bulk against a campaign
10. User should be able to import contacts from a different campaign
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11. User should be able to send mined contacts to woodpecker or other platforms for email campaign
12. User should be able to differentiate between the contacts mailed via woodpecker and the contacts with pending mail.
13. User should be able to analyse responses and change contact status.
14. User Should be able to assign prospects to Sales for personalized approach
Information Architecture
Mid-fi Wireframes​
Being Mid-fi, the screens showcase the focus on the marketing module tasks and its management.
Therefore, missing out on the Filter, Search, Date Filter and breadcrumb naming.
Campaign Flow
Campaign > Active
Campaign > Closed
Dropdown
New Campaign pop-up
Campaign > Closed > Details
Pipeline Flow
Pipeline of Active Prospects
Pipeline > MQL screen
Details of a active MQL
Split screen on clicking on a nurturable prospect
Pipeline > MQL screen (Cta on multi-select)
Dropdown
New Prospect pop-up
Dashboard Flow
Camapign-wise Dashboard with contacts in MQL stage
Camapign-wise Dashboard with contacts in MQL stage Split Screen
Channel Flow
Channels tab
Add new channel pop-up
Learning​
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1. A product which lacks functionality and does not provide a smooth user experience is not a good product and won't sell no matter how unique it might be. A Unique product will leave a mark on the user and have a recall value for sure. USPs act as a major factor which helps brands to compete. Although, USPs are not just about the uniqueness of the product but a unique factor which will help the product be chosen over the other brands.
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2. It is never a bad time to start fresh and prevent future losses. Improving a low quality product concept will save time and money of the company which otherwise they would have spent on fixing and improvement.
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3. There are inescapable times when you have to listen to the stakeholders and work on a project which has no hope. but still you can work towards convincing and directing the decision makers towards better solutions and help them empathise with the users in their own ways.
