CRM
One of the projects I worked on at Presspage was redesigning the company's CRM system to better support the needs of communication professionals. Presspage provides tools for communication professionals to manage their day-to-day tasks and building relationships with journalists and media outlets is crucial to success in this field. Unfortunately, the old CRM system was inadequate for this purpose, lacking the necessary functionality for building meaningful relationships and being tedious to use due to its inefficiency. Through user research and design thinking, I helped the team to redesign the CRM product, with a focus on improving usability and functionality to better support the needs of communication professionals.
Communication professionals aim to establish and maintain meaningful relationships with journalists and media outlets, however, Presspage currently lacks an efficient and user-friendly solution to meet this requirement.
We conducted research to understand the current pain points in the interface and the preferred information and functionality that users expect for the CRM.
To gather this information, we utilized Hotjar to observe users interacting with the CRM and identify where they struggled.
This allowed us to see firsthand the areas of the interface that needed improvement and the specific tasks that users found difficult.
We also held user interviews to understand what tasks users most frequently perform in the CRM and what tasks they would like to be
able to do but currently can't. During these interviews, we also asked about any issues users were facing with the CRM and what other
tools they were using to manage media relations. This information gave us insight into how users are currently using the CRM and how
we could improve it to better meet their needs.
In addition to user research, we also performed desk research and benchmarked competitors.
We looked at other CRM tools and investigated UI patterns that we could use to improve the UI and make it more efficient for users.
This research helped us to identify best practices and design patterns that we could incorporate into the CRM to improve the user experience.
We began by analyzing all of the gathered data to identify patterns and key areas of focus. Based on this analysis, we created a comprehensive list of requirements and discussed them with the development team to ensure feasibility. Using these requirements as a guide, we then created wireframes and iterated on them based on feedback from the internal team. This process allowed us to develop a clear understanding of the project objectives and create a solid foundation for the design of the final product.
As part of our user-centered design process, we created an interactive prototype in Axure to simulate the experience of using our CRM system. The CRM includes a significant number of text inputs and interactive elements, so it was essential to create a fully interactive prototype to fully capture user interactions and feedback during testing. This allowed us to gain valuable insights into the usability of the system, and iterate on the design accordingly to improve the user experience. Using Axure, we were able to create a realistic representation of the final product, which helped us to identify and address any usability issues early in the design process.
To validate the Axure prototype with real users, we employed scenario-based testing. This method involved designing specific scenarios that align with the tasks a user would typically perform in the CRM. This helped us to ensure that all important functionality was being tested, and that the prototype was being evaluated in the context of real-world use. By simulating the typical user experience, we were able to gather valuable feedback and identify any areas where the design could be improved to better meet the needs of the users. Through scenario-based testing, we were able to refine the prototype and ensure that the final product would be intuitive and easy to use for our target audience.
The testing results were positive overall. Users had no trouble finding contacts and adding them to lists, as well as finding contact information. This indicated that the navigation and organization of the contact information was clear and intuitive. However, we did identify some small areas for improvement, such as button labels that were unclear, hidden actions behind a dropdown and also some users expected to be able to inline edit contact information instead of having to go to a modal. These issues were minor and we were able to address them through revisions and further testing. Overall, the prototype received positive feedback and we were able to validate that our design met the needs of the users.
