improve team communication in-product

Overview
I was hired to continue the redesign of Onvia’s flagship product that helped government agencies, and companies connect and do business. The product aggregated opportunities that businesses or agencies could pursue, and win.

 
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Problem
Screeners were responsible for sharing opportunities with key decision makers to win contracts. Team communication took place outside the product, and wasn’t directly attached to an opportunity. As a result communication would become confusing, and hard to manage. This took precious time away from the screeners duties to find, share, and process opportunities for the team.

Goal
Make team communication easier for the screener, and the team to save time and confusion.

Approach
I conducted contextual interviews to gain insights into her work flows, and pain points specific to team communication. I also got feedback from other team members as well. And I did competitive research to understand existing patterns.

 
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Findings
Research uncovered a pain point that was plaguing our target persona, Sarah Screener: team communication. She used email to share leads with her colleagues, but it made her job more difficult.

  • Team communication was hard to manage

  • Communication took place out of context to leads

  • Threads were confusing and hard to track

  • Random team members were cc’d mistakenly

  • Lacked one location for all team communication

 
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Results
Since launching comments into the platform, usage data indicates that over 200 customers are using the new feature.

  • Fewer complaints were being tracked in regard to comments linked to a specific lead

  • Feedback was positive from screeners, saying it made team communication much easier to manage

Takeaway
Getting developers, and product managers involved in the UX process was a great way to reinforce buy-in to the value of a user-centered approach. Involving UX early in the process gave the team a good foundation of data, and observation that informed our solution.