Overview
Problem
A medtech company ‘s marketing and sales team struggled with the software they used to understand their customers. They relied on too many analytics tools and had gaps in important information.
My Role
All UX design and use research (user interviews, usability testing). I was the only UX designer and worked under a manager.
Client
Med Tech Client (Anonymized due to NDA)
Duration
3 Months
Impact and Outcome
From a vague idea to a fully fleshed concept, our client was able to sell the idea internally, and develop a dashboard that is currently in production. The client was so happy with the designs that they extended the project, which helped the team gain an additional $.25M of revenue.
Problem
Opportunity
How might we unite different data sources into a single platform that would provide valuable, on-demand information to reps?
Solution Overview
Customer 360 is a comprehensive, on-demand tool that enables marketing and pharma reps to link various data sources so they can understand customer value through curated analytics.
Design Process
Phase One: Align
The first step in the process is conducting user research. We recruited 16 of our stakeholders and users who had analytics, marketing, and sales backgrounds to participate in a variety of methods so that we can gain insight on their current process and struggles along the way.
user interviews
The first step was discovering the pain points and bright spots of our clients through 1-1 interviews.
Takeaways
The current set of tools don’t provide a complete picture of the customer. The team had to look at multiple software to get the full picture
Reps need full access to the customer fully to identify opportunities. Reps are having a hard time contacting their customers because they don’t have all the information in one place.
All reps wanted to ability to see key patterns leading to a purchase. Clearly putting that information in the front can help reps leverage that data and come up with a more intelligent sales strategy
Some insights (not exhaustive) on sketchy concepts drawn for our user to give feedback on.
Concept Testing
After the interviews, I sketched out ideas after synthesizing the interviews to gain feedback, and see if our initial thinking resonated with the users.
Takeaways
Simplification is key. Reps liked the simplification of the dashboard as it made it easier to scan.
Provide more data than what they already have access to. Giving more visibility to what HCPs do day to day can help tailor the information that the reps give to the HCPs.
Users struggle to understand the impact of their efforts. Include ways that they can see the full engagement picture. Fully seeing what items are at risk and identifying customer buying patterns are important.
Photo from our online futures state workshop
Participatory Design Workshop
Next, we workshopped the design with our clients’ users. In our participatory workshop, we strived to achieve these main goals.
Goals
Figuring out what data visualizations and data points would be helpful for the users
Prioritizing the most impactful KPIs through dot voting. Our idea was that those data points would end up in the overview screen.
Figuring out what visualizations could be combined or deprioritized.
After the workshop, I gained more clarity on what the design might look like because we brainstormed what specific graphs and KPIs will be prioritized and organized.
How might we?
To prepare for the design, I bulleted out the main takeaways from the user research sessions. These statements are the main things that the prototype must address.
Phase Two: Design
Designing with the KPI prioritization Exercise
The design lead and I played around with different layouts and visualizations to find what communicates the data points the best. We landed on the F & Z layout as it communicate these patterns help get the user’s attention to the summary KPIs first, followed by supporting visualizations and a detailed actions list at the end.
Along the design process, I also conducted desk research to gain ideas on how to best to visualize the data and lay out the screens.
Turning Data Points into Designs
After sketching out the design ideas, I started to set up my figma file. By cross-referencing the workshop, the data requirements sheet, and my knowledge of data visualization principles, I started to lay out each screen with the appropriate data visualizations. I used the client’s brand colors as inspiration for the design system.
Turing data points into design (not exhaustive)
Phase Three: Refine
Refining our design by user testing
To ensure that our design resonated with the users, we conducted a usability testing session on 16 of the original participants. I wrote the tasks analysis guides and analyzed the results.
Final Design
Overview
By providing a full picture of the customer, and the ability to dive deeper into details, the users will know the full extent of their efforts.
Features
Users see a timeline view of their interactions that are tied with orders, which can be viewed at a more detailed level
Users see important contact information, preferred communication, and lifetime orders at the very top
An insights panel shows valuable information about the HCP and actionable recommendations to the marketing/sales rep
Interactions
Seeing the full snapshot of the customers’ interactions allows the user to see patterns, helping them to better strategize on serving the customers’ needs.
Features
Users see a detailed view of their interactions, with the ability to further drill down to the types of interactions so they can identify patterns
Benchmarked KPIs are located at the top and provides important information about how well the rep is doing
A detailed list of recent interactions is there to help them see what the HCP is interested in at the moment.
Order lifecycle
Giving the users full transparency on the progress of their orders allows the user to better tend to their customers as they can foresee the potential problems that might occur.
Features
Detailed information on the progress of the orders
Warning symbols next to the orders that are delayed and indications that they are going to be delivered soon. This will be helpful to indicate to the user what needs to be followed up.
Network
Seeing how all the reps’ customers are connected allows the user to spot potential opportunities more quickly.
Features
The ability to filter the type of associations you want to see on the network map
Further details about the people that the HCP (healthcare professional) is connected to uncover potential opportunities
The ability to navigate the map seamlessly through expanding, zooming, and grabbing.
UI Screens
Design System
After creating the prototype, I laid out some spacing guidelines and design system for the engineers. I derived the typography and color palette from the client’s brand colors and altered it for a data-visualization system. I made this in preparation for the next steps, which include choosing a tech stack to create the dashboard.
Reflection
Providing context to the user is very important
A big proportion of our user testers did not know what certain data points meant because of how technical it was. Including a glossary and the ability to click/hover for more details can provide a lot of value.
Involving engineering in the earlier phases
Since the project is going to the next phase, I anticipate there is going to be a big focus on the feasibility of proposed features. Given that the process we took was more of a waterfall approach where we designed it fully and validated it by the users, I think including the engineers in our discussions sooner in an agile approach will greatly reduce the re-working involved.
The challenges of learning about the nuances of healthcare and our persona
This was my first project designing for a pharmaceutical company, and I realized that I had a lot of gaps in the healthcare field in terms of what everything meant. Fortunately, I included myself in the user interviews so I was able to understand the user’s pain points and needs for the basics of this project. However, I think if I were to involve myself in a contextual inquiry or observational study, I would have an even greater understanding of what needs to be done, and that would allow me to design more confidently.