My Role
The team continued to grow and new developers took on the work of extending the platform’s functionality. I worked closely with a small team to get one new feature released for the platform. During this time I led the user experience work and design, front-end development, created training for our platform and delivered it to the team and users. This project took place between May 2015 and August 2015.
The Challenge
Users needed an additional feature to extend functionality for mass updates when managing pay-per-click campaigns. User feedback on preceding features was extremely positive and the new functionality would follow the same approach. This improvement would change the timeframe for manual updates and decrease it from hours down to minutes. The new feature would be a game changer for the users and improve their daily workload tremendously. I worked directly with end users to understand the complexity involved for this project. My relationship with them continued to grow and I worked to become their advocate with management. The end goal of this project was to speed up tasks that could be automated so users could focus on creating relevant content that delivered positive results for their clients.
I realized early on that our new feature had to be well received or the progress made with the users would be lost.
The Approach
Gather Inputs & Set Vision
Ramp-up time for this new feature happened quickly. I already had an understanding of the strategy and needed to apply it to a more complex situation. I reviewed previous feedback, and conducted in-depth interviews with the end users to explore possible solutions. As I continued to gain knowledge of the platform I learned that our users didn’t have a voice. They didn’t have access to information, or any opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback.
Create Objectives & Clarify User Goals
Over time I strengthened my relationship with the users and became the go-to resource for our platform. As a result, management tasked me with educating both the users and new team members on our platform. Development of the training strengthened my knowledge and reinforced my understanding of the essential functionality needed for our users to succeed. I realized early on that our new feature had to be well received or the progress made with the users would be lost. My focus was to understand the nuances associated with the new feature so that all user needs were met.
Identify & Validate Solutions
I considered all rules and validations needed for the new feature. Through user/stakeholder interviews and sketches I gathered the information needed to create a prototype inside the platform. Then I observed the users and found that usability of the new feature was very straightforward. Users were able to complete updates for clients easily and with minimal direction.
Construct Themes & Create Roadmap
Deliverables included wireframes, a working prototype, and platform training materials. Once again, user stories lacked documentation in favor of collaboration. Communication within the team continued to be effective because each member understood their role as a knowledge holder and shared information as needed.
The Discovery
Managements’ philosophy on platform use didn’t match how the users actually behaved. Many usability decisions were changed to accommodate these false assumptions, even though I had gathered data to back up what the users wanted. This created an atmosphere where it was difficult to be the voice for them. I continued to champion good usability and won some battles, those that I lost resurfaced again in the future. Disorganized code helped get the new feature out the door but it also made getting new team members up to speed difficult. The training I developed helped fill in knowledge gaps and I focused on core features of the platform and highlighted those as talking points. As the training evolved, I became a subject matter expert for our platform and developed additional training for non-technical areas of the business.
The Design
- Extend mass update functionality
- Support Keywords (match types, positive/negative, and targeting)
- Fixed layout with limited real estate
- No scrolling for interaction
- Single browser support
The Impact
Users quickly adopted the new feature and initially provided positive feedback. They were thrilled with the progress of the platform and communication continued to improve. It did speed up campaign management, but over time we learned that the implementation was flawed. The new feature eventually caused more problems than it solved and became unusable for many clients. We were unable to recover quickly and future development was stunted. Many improvements made after this realization had to be rolled back to support a new development approach. Progress was slow going forward.