Symphony // Profile & Wall post

Who

• “Front office users” are expert workers, who include research analysts, sales, and traders. Their personal brand and accountability are at stake. They operate in a loud environment, with 4-8 monitors (gives only a small real estate for Symphony). Their communication mode is synchronous, transient, transactional, and time-sensitive conversations. They have high touch interactions daily that’s worth a lot of money,
  
  

• “Back office users” - are admin and process workers who include Operations and IT. They are less personally accountable, operate in a quiet environment, with 2 monitors (gives more real estate for Symphony). Their communication mode is asynchronous and isn’t time-sensitive.

Context

• Users do not have access to user information beyond the basics of what they see from a hovercard

• Users would like to see all the user details,  read their  posts,  see what rooms they are part of and the types of tags they follow at one glance

• Users would like to confirm identity before connecting  and follow

• Leaders and managers of an organization want to  post updates and share important information with the entire organization

• Leaders who have posted messages would also like to know the number of likes, forwards and shares users do not have access to user information beyond the basics of what they see from a hovercard. Users want to follow people who are important, be on top of their posts, be able to see what rooms they are part of and the types of tags they follow. Also, leaders and managers use their profiles to post updates and share important information with their organizations.

What and Why

In an ideal world, users should be able to easily find and know all the user information about a user prior to following at a glance - such as location, time zone,  recent posts, and tags.  Address the usability gaps found on older versions of the product, such as discoverability, follow/ unfollow,  back to the original message, customization, posting, and editing shared messages. 

Measure

• Increase trust

• Improve adoption and engagement rate

• Improve the usability issues in the older version

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Symphony // Relevant messages

Who

This feature is catered for users who are part of large rooms (75 + member count), which can include both Front Office and Back Office users.

• “Front office users” are expert workers, who include research analysts, sales, and traders. Their personal brand and accountability are at stake. They operate in a loud environment, with 4-8 monitors (gives only a small real estate for Symphony). Their communication mode is synchronous, transient, transactional, and time-sensitive conversations. They have high touch interactions daily that’s worth a lot of money,

• “Back office users” - are admin and process workers who include Operations and IT. They are less personally accountable, operate in a quiet environment, with 2 monitors (gives more real estate for Symphony). Their communication mode is asynchronous and isn’t time-sensitive.

Context

In an active chat with a large number of members, there is often much noise that follows an important message. This results in heavy scrolling to catch up and finding what’s most meaningful to you and being on top of things isn’t an easy task.

Why is this important?

• Stay informed that’s most relevant to them

• Act upon fast and make decisions accordingly

• Not miss out on any key information from key contacts (managers/higher-ups)

What/Why

In an ideal world, relevant messages will be proactively filtered and surfaced in context, removing noise, creating a personalized experience based on @mentions, customizations, unread new conversations, etc. So users will not miss out on any critical info and be on top of things.

Measure

• Adoption and engagement rate

• ML input data to improve personalization algorithm

• Personalization confidence rate

• Improve our algorithm to personalize smarter, better, and more valuable to the user

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Wetravel

Introduction

Wetravel is an online payment platform to organize trips, manage bookings and collect payments. The founders ask was to validate if current users (organizers) are comfortable paying via we travel and on the other hand, vendors willingness to accept money and opt-in as we travel vendors. If the validation is true team had to design a vendor hub payment feature.   

Goals

• Payment System - Design a payment system for Wetravel users to pay their vendors in an inexpensive and seamless way
• Acquisition - Attract and acquire new WeTravel users through the use of a “Request Payment” feature for verified vendors
• Vendor Hub - Create space for WeTravel users to save their vendor’s contact information
   

Process

User Interviews
We interviewed 10 existing users with a generative method and 7 International vendors with the same method but showed mock-up screens imitating the vendor-opt in feature to get initial reactions. Through affinity mapping and a 2 x 2 table, the hypothesis was validated and both users were willing to accept the new feature.   

Other Key Insights include:
Organizers (Use Case 1)
Easy to use  and inexpensive
Requested the ability to created custom payment plans and  PO/ Invoice generator

Vendors (Use Case 2)
Liked to market via we travel
Concern about trust and credibility

Competitive Analysis
Along with interviews, we did a competitive analysis with both direct and indirect competitors to understand the on-boarding experience, trust issue, usability,  pros and cons.

Low-fi + Test
Then the team performed crazy 8s and several rounds of iterations before design concepts were finalized and tested.  Testing low-fi design concepts distilled the confusion around labeling and few CTAs. These designs were iterated further and later shared with the founders.

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Hi-fi  + Prototype
The team did multiple iterations on the key components: dashboard, past transactions, and vendor hub screens.  Once finalized they were tested and presented to the clients.  

Click here for prototype

RockIQ

Introduction

RockIQ is a stock aggregator using machine learning to provide intelligent stock picks for the everyday investor. Their mission is to shorten the learning curve and provide a clear financial analysis to make smart investments easier. Since they are an early-stage startup, the request was to build an MVP for their dashboard that highlights sentiment score and market trends to inform them of the best which is used to raise capital and customer development.  

Process

Discovery
The team worked closely with the founders to understand their business model and key differentiators.

Needs Finding
The team set out to validate the following:

• If the sentimental value is important to users in making buying stock decisions?
• What data should be on the dashboard?
• What are the triggers for investment?

Competitive Analysis
We audited both direct and indirect competitive landscape, e.g. Robinhood, Yahoo finance wanted to know the data shown to users, strengths and weakness and where we stand and how we can improve our product.

User Interviews
We interviewed 12 users and using affinity mapping key insights were derived: 

• The biggest takeaway was that RockIQ's initial unique value prop did not match users goals and needs
• Users were overwhelmed with the plethora of information
• Users rely on multiple resources to validate their understanding
• Some didn't know where to begin
• Identified more than one user type -- beginners and Intermediate

Ideation
The team used crazy 8's to go broad and eventually narrow to few best options based on dot voting. Based on the top 5 concepts, the team diverged to sketch low-fi dashboard concepts. From here the team built upon one another's widget concepts, to come up with a final design. 

Prototype + Test
These provocations were tested with additional users and iterated further and later shared with the same and the findings with the founders.

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Hi-fi
After multiple rounds of validation, and iterations final design was wrapped.

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Pinterest Redesign // case study

Introduction

Pinterest is my go-to resource for any design inspiration, be it product design or styling my house. I love this product because it allows me to explore the abundance of creative ideas and eventually to craft my own. I always felt it is easy to use and helped me to attain my goals. However, recently I came across few usability issues that caused confusion and stifled my discoveries. I am curious to know if other users are facing the same or similar concerns.

Hypothesis

• Organize - used to organize the boards and pins the way you want
  Pain point: It is not findable and behaves inconsistently within the boards. Often confused with the edit CTA

Visual search:

• Lens - used to search for similar items simply pointing at anything and capturing the image
  Pain point: It is subdued within the search bar and hardly noticeable.  It doesn’t feel tactile and is not persistent when text search is activated
• Instant ideas - used to search similar ideas and items within an image by zooming into them
  Pain point: It is not noticeable and the interaction is unclear
• Shop the look - allows you to  shop items you see within an image
  Pain point: It is not noticeable and it overlaps with instant ideas

However, I  believe all these features are both helpful and useful for users not only to discover, compare and eventually to make purchasing decisions.  So, I wanted to know how can you remove the ambiguity around these features and make it salient so users can be delighted.

Objective

• Test my hypothesis
•  Understand discoverability issues for all three visual search features
•  Understand findability issue with "organize"
•  Learn about the ambiguity around functionality
• Suggest possible solutions and validate

Process

My proto-persona

To stay unbiased and knowing that Pinterest users are wide and general,  I created a proto-persona with patterns and behavior a possible Pinterest user could have.

Here is the info on Pinterest's Demographics.

Research

I conducted guerrilla testing with 3 new and 3 existing users. I chose these users to understand how they are engaging with the product and wanted to make sure is my hypothesis is the same or different across these different type of users.  5 usability tasks were given, first two tasks began with the core objective of Pinterest, how users discover ideas, collect and organize. Organize was emphasized to understand the findability concerns.  The last three tasks were focused to learn about the discoverability issues with visual search.

Example of the Task:  Imagine you just moved into a new condo and looking for inspirations to furnish. Look for a couch and pick two favorites?

Analysis

Affinity Mapping
Through usability tasks, key insights were driven for all 6 users. Using the key insights, and with affinity mapping, similar patterns emerged. 

2X2 Table
Once similar patterns were recognized, I then categorized the pain points into priorities that are important to both users and business.

Define

Results confirmed users were facing the same  findability and discoverability usability issues.

Ideate

User Flow

Organize // Before:

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Organize // After:

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Prototype

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Validation

In order to validate my hypothesis, for both and after versions, the same usability tasks were given to similar audiences (new and existing users)  to avoid bias.

Before redesign

After redesign

Click here to view prototype

TL; DR

Pinterest is the platform to discover ideas, inspirations, recipes and much more. Ideas can be saved, organized and shared. Features such as Lens, shop the look and Instant ideas help you to discover ideas efficiently. My hypothesis is currently they are not discoverable. Also, the organize feature is not intuitive and lacks findability. Since I love Pinterest so much, I know if these problems are to be solved users can have a seamless experience. To validate my hypothesis, I did guerrilla usability testing to understand if similar or any unknown problems exist for users.  The usability results confirmed my hypothesis, so I re-designed these features and validated with a high-fidelity clickable prototype. The results varied, so further iterations and testing are required for possible solutions. 

Thoughts: The experience was awesome. I had so much fun doing all the explorations,  ideating and trying to find the best possible solutions.  I learned that today's best possible solutions will not be the same tomorrow. 

Note: I do not work for Pinterest and not affiliated with them.

I give props to Zac Halbert and my participants.

ShopEZ

OBJECTIVE

Design a solution that makes daily grocery shopping more fun, more meaningful, more efficient or all of these.

VALUE PROPOSITION

For busy working parents & Urbanites whose shopping pattern is similar, SHOP EZ helps automate this process hence making their recurring grocery shopping more Efficient!

TARGET AUDIENCE

Primary Audience
Busy Working Parents, 25-45 Yrs

Secondary Audience
Urbanites, 21-35 Yrs

TOOLS USED

Omnigraffle, MURAL

TubiTV

OBJECTIVE

Rethink the TubiTV signup experience to increase conversion rate.

PROBLEM

• The existing experience did not require users to signup to access the content, hence signup rate was low

• Too many mandatory fields, including personal data were required, causing user frustration and increased drop rate

• The customer benefit of signing up wasn't clearly communicated, so users weren't motivated

TOOLS USED

Sketch, Zeplin

Nolo

DESIGN CHALLENGE

Redesign desktop and mobile web experience for Nolo.com home page.

PROCESS

• Reviewed their current website to uncover what works well and what doesn't

• Analyzed competitive landscapeRestructured the information architecture - from Deep to Flat 

• Took a modular design approach to optimize for responsiveness

• Reduced visual clutter, noise, and repetitive content

TOOLS USED

Sketch

MOBILE WEB EXPERIENCE

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DESKTOP EXPERIENCE

Mercedes-Benz

DESIGN CHALLENGE

Design a new Apple Watch experience for setting the time for the preheating system on a Mercedes-Benz car that also seamless works well with the inbuilt MB infotainment.

TOOLS USED

Sketch, Photoshop
Apple Watch UI Kit Credits

Img

Festively

OBJECTIVE

Digitize the venue and vendor partners through Festively. Festively works through venues as venue broker very much like a Wedding-Spot or an Eventup with a Facebook-like mechanism to onboard their vendor networks in a mutually beneficially fashion.

PROBLEM

• Event planning is fragmented and discovery is difficult
• Painful for event professionals to market work digitally
• Existing advertising platforms do not convert into the right client

SOLUTION

• Digital marketing tools made easy built on top of social media/networks
• Appointment /referral management system for event professionals
• Discovery and booking platform for venues and vendors for event planning

ROLE

• Worked closely with the Lead Designer and Co-Founder
• Actively contributed to the customer development and iterative design phase
• Mapped out the e2e vendor onboarding and manage portfolio experience
• Redesigned Festive.ly landing, profile page for Venues + Vendors

Wedding Planner App

DESCRIPTION

Design a solution for couples who're planning their wedding, from budgeting to their wedding theme.

TOOLS USED

Omnigraffle

DESKTOP EXPERIENCE

MOBILE EXPERIENCE