Overview
With the rise of social networks, came the need for a way for the Legal team at this company to keep track of all the accounts that were being used, whether it was actively or defensively. We were approached with the challenge to make registering existing social network accounts, and requesting new ones, to be as pain-free and fast as possible. Working very closely with the Legal team, we were able to ensure that both user and admin needs were met in this new design.
UX Goals
Provide system feedback to keep users informed
Reduce user errors by being proactive and helpful
Keep consistency and design for re-usability
My Role
Information Architect / UX Designer
The Client
Confidential
Users « Marketing & Brand
"As a marketing brand professional, I need to be able to create accounts across a variety of social media networks, and manage them easily from campaign to campaign"
Framing the Problem
Marketing/Brand professionals are often handling multiple campaigns at the same time, and creating new social network accounts for each of them is time consuming. Not only that, they need to submit for legal approval, and are often rejected without understanding why.
User Flows
This flow represents the user's journey through the Information Architecture designed for this web application. It was a great way to demonstrate the various pages that a user may touch upon, and where the critical decision points were.
The Interface
For this particular client, we determined that they need to see visuals in order to understand the solutions presented. Below are the final visual mocks, but medium-fidelity wireframes were created as the primary communication tool of the proposed design.
Interaction Design Moment
We designed a clean and simple interface that allowed users to search, see trademark infringements, and add to their cart.
Since the transactions are very complex, I focused on always providing clear feedback and strong visual cues for next steps. I also aimed to minimize the number of click-throughs, and provided convenience features, such as Bulk Actions to make the process as painless as possible.
Users « Legal
"As a Legal Professional, I am the gatekeeper of all social media presence on the web. With hundreds of requests a week, I need an easy way to view, approve, reject, and manage all the accounts that need my attention".
Framing the Problem
The Legal team feels overwhelmed by the number of requests that need their attention. Marketing Managers are constantly asking them for updates, and they have no time to easily communicate the status of the request, and provide rationale why requests are being rejected.
Admin Process Flows
We had to develop a way for the system to communicate to users, and at specific junctures throughout. Inevitably, these processes ebbed and flowed, and we needed to stay flexible and adaptive when new information came our way.
The Interface
Users with Admin credentials viewed an alternate view of the web application. Their primary goals were to manage projects, accounts, users, and content. Due to the high difference in functionality, we created a separate annotated wireframe for the Admin-side of the web application.
Challenges & Learnings
It took nearly 8 months to arrive at a solution that met the goals and needs of both user types, and it seemed that every meeting there were new needs surfacing. Scope creep was probably the largest obstacle we kept facing, and we worked endlessly to keep communication lines open and honest. The biggest learning from this experience was to focus foremost on the most effective way to communicate with the specific client I'm working with.
We worked within several constraints. Most notably, we weren't able to get access to perform Contextual Inquiries with the employees we were designing for. I was also working with a might Development team of 2, and also crowned myself as the Queen of QA (i.e. Team of 1).