VTS Activate - Audiences
Simplified the content distribution process to create ease in the "targeting step" of content creation, established consistency, and increased confidence and understanding around content viewership and notification delivery rules.
Role
Product designer
Strategic vision
Platforms
Figma
Confluence
Jira
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Overview
VTS Activate is a powerful and configurable tenant experience platform that allows property managers to build branded experiences for their tenants and streamline communications easily. Each VTS Activate customer is unique and looks to us to provide them with a channel architecture setup that enables them to fulfill all their use cases as easily as possible. Customers may have one or many properties, and they desire overall organization and easy distribution of content.
During our Hierarchy and Channel Discovery we identified several painpoints:
Hierarchy set up is complex and confusing for customers (and also our internal team) due to lack of standardization.
With options such as sub-channels, join rules, and targeting, hierarchies can quickly become complex. It takes time to effectively set up, manage, and support the organization and distribution of content in the long term.
Content viewership and notification delivery isn't certain.
There is a lack of clear understanding regarding how, when, and why users may or may not see content or receive notifications.
Data integrity is at risk due to the absence of a uniform method for creating hierarchy and distributing content.
As a result, we are unable to obtain granular channel analytics on our platform.
The challenge
Our internal teams and workplace admins spend egregious amounts of time testing content targeting and notifications. Users will create test accounts each time, adding them to a specific team, and then logging in as that user to view and ensure the content is visible.
Reduce the complexity of hierarchy creation and management through standardization, and the removal of ‘workarounds’ to effectively distribute content across the platform.
Workarounds include:
Manual testing:
Multiple Failsafes:
Join rules are created to ensure members are part of all channels that they could be potentially ever receiving content from (parent channels, sub-channels, etc). Admins must ensure it’s set up correctly at all times. If a new join rule is created, a retroactive customer migration must happen to ensure content will flow correctly.
Research
By conducting thorough user interviews, mapping user flows, and facilitating workshops with the pod's product manager and lead engineer, I fostered a collaborative environment that enabled us to align on the product vision and gain a comprehensive understanding of user needs and technical constraints.
Based on the insights gained and engaging in brainstorming sessions with the team, we were able to identify areas of improvement and potential bottlenecks:
Remove content from the confines of the channel.
The lack of confidence in content viewership and notification delivery arises from content being confined to specific channels. We aim to disassemble this constraint, providing customers with clearer assurances regarding when and why content notifications will (or won't) be delivered.
Allow 'one-click targeting' through pre-created 'groups' which will target content to multiple channels at once.
Admins will not need to have permissions on each channel to target the content, just permissions on the pre-created group itself. They will also be able to target all or select properties in one-click.
Separate out the go live, start/end times for a more intuitive experience.
This was causing a lot of confusion for our users as they weren't able to distinguish between start/end times for publishing and start/end times for an event.
The result
To validate the designs and ensure it met user expectations and addressed their pain points effectively, I went through iterative design cycles, incorporating feedback from stakeholders, users, and usability testing sessions. I also worked closely with the development team, providing them with detailed design specifications, assets, and clarifications.
Since launching our beta test and conducting follow-up usability testing with both internal users and clients, there has been a 100% task success rate and an 80% decrease in user complaints about usability and time on task. This project is set to launch in July 2023.
Future opportunities
Although "Audiences" has led to significant improvements in user engagement and satisfaction, we recognize that there are still areas for improvement and future opportunities. Here are some areas we identified for future development:
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Simplify the Editor: Revisit the "Editor" step of the content creation process and do a UX audit of all of the blocks and its features. This is an integral part of the content creation process and it's also the most confusing and time consuming.
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Usability testing: Ongoing testing is important to identify and address any remaining usability issues. Regularly testing with real users will provide valuable feedback to improve the user experience and ensure our platform meets evolving needs.