The approach

Going into this project we knew a solid UX foundation would be necessary to figure out the issues that users faced and to convince the client that they would be a worthwhile investment.

The strategy department had already signed off personas so my first task was to create user journeys based on their individual frustrations and needs. Thinking ahead to the best way to present these to the client, I decided to produce user journeys ‘as they are’ and then ‘as they could be’. This effectively doubled my workload but I believed that it would pay off later. Doing two versions of the user journeys allowed me to:

1. Flag existing bugs and show how fixing them would reduce potential frustration with the product.
   

2. Highlight areas that could be improved, such as the current data and insights layouts and the filtering functionality, and show how they could impact the user’s experience for the better.
   

3. Propose new features that could add value to the user, such as an onboarding process that would promote relevant content from the data sets and related insights.
   

4. See whether these fixes and recommendations would benefit multiple personas and create a prioritised list to summarise my findings.

This became a large body of work so I presented only one persona and user journey to the client. This illustrated the format of the document so we could leave it with her to review:

1. Executive summary with prioritised list.
   

2. Persona
   

3. ‘As it is‘ user journey with flagged bugs and areas for improvement.
   

4. Summary of changes made and who would be responsible for implementing them.
   

5. ‘As it could be‘ user journey correcting those issues.
   

6. Repeat steps 3-5 depending on how many user journeys the persona required.

This method paid off as the client approved every recommendation made.

The structure of the tool was quite complicated with different subscription levels allowing users access to different content. I created a new site map to highlight how users with different subscriptions would either, see the same page, see the same page but with extra content or not see the page at all. This was a useful aid for our in-house developers who would be rebuilding the tool from scratch.

As an agency we worked with the global team (of an international professional services firm) as well as individual clients throughout the network. At the same time as I was doing the UX phase of this project we were translating their newly simplified brand for use online. Therefore, to make sure our client was fully aware of the updates to the online look and feel, I decided high fidelity wireframes would be the best approach.

The solution

The solid UX phase and high fidelity wireframes resulted in a slick, modern and highly functional tool that followed current web and brand standards.

The UI was completed by another designer with creative oversight from myself. Our in-house developers were to complete the build phase so I also provided guidance in translating the design online.

Reflections

This project was a very good example of why we should never be rigid in our processes. Understanding the client’s perspective and thinking ahead to how they may react is very important. Tailoring the user journey deliverable was key in getting the client on board with making extensive changes to a dated product so it was worth the additional time investment.