"My Business" is an internal product of the largest bank in Russia, designed to facilitate interaction and service for corporate clients in the large business segment.
Users do not perceive the value of the new tool for conducting technical expertise; they find it difficult and inconvenient to use. As a result, they have opted not to use the new tool and prefer to continue relying on existing methods for working with corporate clients, such as Excel, notes, and email.
Utilizing the current design system within the existing CRM, we aim to create a new tool for conducting technical expertise. This tool must be intuitive and valuable for users to optimize their workflows.
The team comprised 18 members, including a team lead, analysts, a data scientist, frontend and backend developers, and a DevOps engineer. I was the sole designer responsible for creating the new tool.
User Interviews
01
To start, I conducted user interviews to gain insights into our users. I identified the main roles involved in the technical expertise process and explored the tasks, needs, and challenges specific to each role.
As a result, I categorized the user roles into two primary groups: experts responsible for conducting engineering expertise and managers who work directly with corporate clients.
At this stage, I hypothesized that each user group would benefit from a distinct type of application for technical expertise.
Ethnographic User Research
02
To optimize the user workflow, I first needed to understand their current processes. I spent time observing how they completed tasks using existing tools.During these observations, I took notes to develop user scenarios later on. The most valuable artifact that emerged from this was the status model, which outlines the path a technical expertise request follows from start to finish.
Co-Prototyping
03
At this stage, I had established a strong, trusting relationship with an engaged group of users. They were enthusiastic about the idea of creating the first prototype based on the scenarios I had previously developed, which could be tested.
However, the users in this group had varying opinions on how the tool should be designed. As a result, I took on the role of mediator, ensuring that everyone's perspectives were considered.
Usability testing
04
After preparing a clickable prototype, I tested it with a group of users who had not participated in the co-prototyping phase. Their task was familiar: to conduct a technical expertise using the new interface with one of the example requests.
The results revealed many interesting insights, but I will highlight six key points.
1
Working with documents
We need an automated system for recognizing and distributing files to prevent confusion with documents.
2
Tabular data
It is essential to reevaluate the visualization of tabular data, as a tabular view is not always convenient for users.
3
Final conclusion
In the technical experts' interface, provide the final summary conclusion on a separate level from the request.
4
Separate interfaces
Create separate interfaces for the two main user groups, as they have different tasks and needs.
5
Automatic information recognition
It is essential to implement automatic information recognition in documents and incorporate it into the summary conclusion without the need for expert involvement.
6
Сhecking the cost
Develop a tool to compare the declared cost of a project with that of similar projects.
Design system
05
Since the "Technical Expertise" section is part of a single CRM system, I utilized the existing design system, which significantly saved us time.
I contributed to improving the design system only when necessary. For instance, I initiated the addition of a character counter to the input and textarea components. We also modified the status indicators to comply with WCAG 2.0 guidelines, considering that one of the user groups consists of adults, some of whom have visual impairments.
Final design
06
The entire interface was designed from scratch for each of the two user groups, taking their specific tasks and needs into account. Most importantly, users can now easily understand the current stage of a request and what actions are required to progress to the next stage. The interface guides users through the entire request process, providing clear prompts for each necessary action.
Results
07
After implementing all the planned functionality, we launched a user survey to gauge satisfaction with the new tool. The results exceeded my expectations, yielding hundreds of enthusiastic responses.