Virtual EventsMeet & Engage
I was approached by a SaaS company to help them develop a new product – a virtual events platform, which repurposes a wide range of their existing tools and features. The development is in progress and the client and the project are confidential.
The product space
SaaS chat and chat bot platform.
The brief
Create a new tool – virtual events platform, based on existing functionalities.
The work
Consultancy, planning, qualitative and quantitative user research, UX and UI designs.
Discovery
I kicked off the project by having multiple conversations with the stakeholders. The aim was to determine the business goals and desires, gain more insight into the existing products, establish limitations, define KPIs and educate the different stakeholders on the key aspects of UX (and its importance). I also used the opportunity to find out more about any existing user insights and competitor research the team already had.
Approach
After gaining a good idea of the business needs and the project constraints, I created a proposal outlining the methodology and timeline I planned to implement. As the new platform is supposed to be largely based on tools and features the business already offers, there was a certain frame I could work with. The key here was to find out what the user needs and pain points are and how these features and functionalities can potentially address their needs.
Research
The first step was to define the target users. I used the insights provided by the stakeholders in combination with competitor research to create the initial user personas. Even though at this point the personas were mostly hypothetical due to insufficient user data, this served as a springboard for creating user flows and putting together a selection of questions for a user survey.
The user survey aimed to test the assumptions made so far and help better understand the user needs, clearly outline their needs, pain points and priorities.
In addition to the survey, I reviewed feedback from users who had previously used the platform’s other existing tools.
Planning
While the survey was running and collecting responses, I sketched the first draft of the wireframes. The sketches were based on the proposed user flows. After a few revisions, I transformed the drawn wireframes into low-fidelity wireframes (using Adobe XD) which I presented to the stakeholders in order to get their input but also to bring them up to speed with the scope of the proposed new platform.
Once I had analysed the survey responses and previous user feedback, I tweaked my previous work refined, data-informed user personas and flows. The research confirmed most of the assumptions made in the earlier stages of the project but it also gave me ideas for other opportunities and ways to address essential pain points. This user data played a key role in defining priorities (for both users and the product team), shaped the crucial user stories and helped outline the first draft of the MVP.
UI design
Having implemented all the user findings into improved versions of the wireframes, the next step was to bring the mockups to life using the established design system*. I created two separate and slightly different hi-fidelity prototypes. This enabled me to test the multiple proposed features in a way that is less overwhelming for the users and me.
Further user testing
I tested the prototypes with users in three consecutive rounds and refined the UX and UI after each round to eliminate major issues, minimise unclarity/confusion and re-align priorities. The final result was the first draft of the MVP.
Next steps
The approach I proposed for the development of this product was iterative, lean UX. The goal of the first stage was to rapidly create an MVP and launch it as quickly as possible so that there can be more input from real users and much bigger/better user data. The new platform needs constant revisions and optimisation in order to grow and adhere to the ever-changing needs of its users.
Design system*
Prior to this project, I had worked with this client on a few other UI projects including a design system. I had already created a detailed, centralised library of styles, components and guidelines that reflect the company products’ neutral look & feel. This allowed me to speed up the UI design and prototyping process for this particular projects as reused and repurposed many of the elements from the UI kit.
