Research & Design

A Responsive Web App for an Enterprise Performance Management Tool

UX Strategy, User Research, Interaction Design, And User Testing For A Custom Developed Web Application

Impact

This effort resulted in the launch of a modern web application, developed from the ground up, which enabled managers to achieve their core goals in a manner that made sense to them.  The final product combined individual employee data with real-time error checking, alerts, and roll-ups that enabled just-in-time decision making for over 12,000 managers across the organization, and impacted the lives of 100,000 employees.

Additionally, the product received stellar scores on 3 key metrics:

Usability Score: 82 | Baseline: 72

Satisfaction Score: 77 | Baseline: 51

Outcome Score: 70 | Baseline: 51

Background

When joining this project, the organization was in desperate need of a replacing a 15 year old set of systems, which managers used to make annual employee performance and compensation decisions.

  • Conducted User interviews and surveys

  • Created wireframes, screen flows, and interactive prototypes

  • Conducted iterative user testing

  • Managed stakeholders

  • Communicated both the minimum viable product and the long term vision

My Role

Key Challenges

User Resistance to Change

This project involved replacing a suite of tools and processes that managers became familiar with over a 15 year period.  To combat the legacy applications’ shortcomings managers developed their own methods (some might call them workarounds) to accomplish critical tasks.  Familiarity with what they considered their own unique processes, combined with resistance to change, led to a feeling across the user base that this change wasn’t needed.

Approach

To overcome this challenge I observed managers work with the legacy tools and identified ways to address the sources of many workarounds they had adopted. 

Outcome

I was able to support many of the homegrown manager practices with native app functionality. For example, I found many managers exported data and analyzed it using pivot tables.  I identified the key variables managers used when performing this analysis and incorporated them into the tool’s dashboard, eliminating the need for managers to export and massage the data on their own.

Data analysis features implemented as a result of user research.

Adapting to Major Strategy Changes

Twice during the iterative design process organization leadership made decisions that greatly impacted the application's interaction architecture, without extending timelines.

Approach

In both instances, I leaned heavily on my rapid prototyping and user testing methodologies to test basic assumptions made as a result of the strategy changes.

Outcome

I was able to build and user test several interactive prototypes in rapid succession, scrap the ideas that didn't work, and create new designs that were in line with the strategic direction and still helped users achieve their goals.

Initial prototype based on assumptions

1st set of quick-turn modification based on user testing insights

2nd set of quick-turn modification based on user testing insights

Final implementation

Meeting Different Users' Needs

While my user research did reveal three core goals that were central to all managers when using the tool (reward high performers, be fair, don't make mistakes) it also revealed differing needs for managers at different levels in the organization.

Managers of small teams only needed to comprehend their own team and budget, while managers one level up also needed to be intimately familiar with the decisions made for all employees rolling up to them.  Above this second level, managers needed to comprehend their own team and budget, but did not need to be familiar with every employee rolling up to them.  Instead they needed to dive into the details of specific subsets of employees to perform various sanity checks.

Approach

To address these varying needs, I identified a primary user archetype and determined if this archetype's needs were met, the needs of all managers would also be met.  When making design decisions I placed myself in this archetype's shoes, and ran through key questions: 1) How do I see this information for everyone who rolls up to me? 2) How can I confirm this information for a specific subset of my employees? 3) How can I dive into this information and get to the lowest level of detail? 

Outcome

Keeping these questions in mind enabled me to create an interaction architecture that allowed fluid navigation through the varying levels of detail required by each type of manager.

Whiteboard screen flow diagram based on persona's needs