Business problem
While OvationCXM had the ability to integrate with commonly used CRM and other applications, our forms were used to collect data that was shared back and forth with those applications, used to make business decisions and to collect user satisfaction surveys.
The problem
The current state of the forms needed improvements.
There had been several development teams working on the forms area over time and they were able to implement a lot of functionality including conditional statements and linked data fields, however the user satisfaction level was low.
OvationCXM needed to improve the general usability but they also had a large client using the forms in a unique way. We wanted to design something intuitive and scalable, that satisfied the needs of both large and small clients without too much single client customization.
My roles
Product Designer and I worked with a development team based out of South America and with my manager who was based out of North Carolina. Truly a global team.
Constraints
We wanted the UI and element behaviors to be consistent across all areas of the application. Much of the design constraints came from cross design team collaboration in creating and abiding by our design system. We were working independently and creating new Figma components; they were not all going to make it into the design system, but still needed to be shared. We were able to overcome these issues with
We also had to determine which frameworks and libraries we were going to use. In doing this we did come across some tech gaps. One particular gap was the filters. The grid we were using did not allow the filters to display as they had been called out in the design system. To overcome this we worked on designing within the component parameters to have the UI and behavior consistent with other elements in the application.
Our target users
We had a variety of target users. When the company was first started we did not sell our proprietary software. We used the software to handle customer service issues for other companies, especially with their credit card machines. While the main goal of Ovation has shifted and now sells SaaS we still have some credit card service clients. This means that some of our end users are internal and Customer Service agents. This allowed for easy interaction and scheduling for user interviews and testing.
Another segment, our largest, were financial institutions and banks. In addition to that we had large corporations that used OvationCXM to help keep records and cut tickets for maintenance on their machines.
Designing for this population was interesting because there were two layers of users. The ones who would use our software and the end user who experienced the issue.
Our goals
Our goal was to redesign the forms area and create an easy to use interface that had a high amount of complexity. We had to also keep in mind that the forms area would interact with reporting and share data with other software and CRM's.
Success metrics
Our projected metrics would have been the
- Number of forms created.
- New form usage.
- Was our large client able to reduce the amount of time and effort it took to create maintenance forms.
- Reporting on metrics with data points that were collected via forms.
- Reduction in forms tickets and agent assist.
End result or outcome
Users were delighted with what they saw coming to life. There was a lot of buzz on how this would improve our clients and their end users experience.
One of our founders said "Forms might be some of the best work we have seen here".
The solution requirements
- Having an interactive grid allowing users to take quick actions on published forms.
- Providing users with a quick way to disburse forms and share results.
- Creating a visual form builder to allow users to view the complex from creation in one panel.
- Providing users with conditional and branching options.
- Providing users with customization and branding options.
- Allowing users to easily duplicate large chunks of the form for repetitive group questions.
Testing proces
The testing was conducted with a demonstration allowing our clients, customer service agents, product managers, developers and founders to experience the functionality and flow. This provided me with information that was used to refine the designs.
Through our testing we were able to
- Refine question types.
- Add save functions to reuse large question elements such as state dropdowns.
- Elevate the importance of group question chunking.
- We also learned that the clients needed customization options to help ease the end users spam aversion with their trusted branding.
Cross-functional cooperation
I worked with an amazing team of management, product designers and developers. OvationCXM fosters a culture of open communication and feedback. This allowed for free flowing communication with several teams through email, chat, meetings and Figma comments.
Problem-solving and people-centered approach
I believe in Human Centered design and so does OvationCXM. Building the best CXM software in the industry does not come without listening to the needs of your clients. For this particular project I was fortunate enough to work among part of our target user group. In addition to that I was able to make connections on our internal sales team who were happy to ask their clients to participate in design interviews so that I could get first hand knowledge of their pain points and the goals they were trying to accomplish.
My reflection
Forms was an amazing project. This project was very complex and included a lot of user requirements. I feel like the designs were successful. We were able to create a UI that was far less intimidating and far more intuitive than what was available. We were also able to design features that allowed users to create large forms without having to re-enter data or use outside assistance tools like Excel. This would save our users time and reduce frustration. The collaboration with different teams and the down-to-earth approach by management made research, testing and development communication easy
