yPM- Project Management Tool
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Project Intro
“yPM” is an internal web-based project management tool used by developers, testers, designers, and project leaders on a daily basis at Yokogawa, India. The product had received a lot of complaints from its users on its usability. I, along with my team, worked on redesigning this application to improve its usability and experience.
Team members
Sparsh Padiyal
Mahesh Karki
Me!
My Roles
Tools used
UX Designer
User Researcher
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Balsamiq
Visio
Illustrator
An intuitive redesigned tool which helped users in completing their day to day tasks easily and thus making them more productive in their in their work.
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The Problem
It takes a lot of time for our employees to get things done in this tool. Time = money. How can this tool help in their work so that they are more efficient?
- Head of ISDC
Project Goal
Redesign of the whole tool for the next version - which alleviated the major problems faced by the user and made the employees more efficient in their work.
Some of the issues identified from research on the features I was responsible for were:​
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Users spent a significant amount of time in this tool to do simple tasks like ,
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"How do I get my work reviewed fast and see the comments?", "Why are the comments not linked with the review request?" and so on.
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An overall complicated information architecture and confusing navigation.
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Users were unable to identify which tasks they were suppose to complete first, which required more urgency etc.
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The managers also faced an issue in making sure their teams were giving right priority to the tasks and finishing them on time. They felt that their comments were also getting unnoticed by their teams.
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The "How"?
Since this was a redesign of an existing tool, I started off by evaluating the software and conducted quick usability tests followed by interviews with the team members and their respective managers including the highest manager of the branch using the tool.
Later, I prioritized the issues by collaborating with the Product and the Technical Manager of this product, taking the project's timelines, budget, and technical constraints into consideration. Lean UX methodology was adopted to iterate quickly and prototypes were tested quickly with the users on the same to receive immediate feedback on the designs.
Process followed
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The solution - My contribution
Short summary of my work and the solution
Previous version and problems identified from research:
Home / My Tasks
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Only expert users were able to extract information related to the status of the project.
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Users were not being able to understand on what to act first.
Review Requests
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Accessing the same data was different across different pages.​
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Users were unable to search any item easily.
Review Comments
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There was no task continuity at many places leading to frustration and dropoffs at multiple points.
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Navigation and Filters were not easy to use
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I also identified from my research that pop ups hindered the task flow and underlying information in the screen.
Final designs for the new version:
Redesign home screen with dashboard, to help users understand on what to act first : In the research I found out that there were a lot of items that users had to act upon but they had to filter the items everytime to find the high priority items or the items which had a near deadline.
Streamlined Navigation: With the introduction of the dashboard screen, I streamlined navigation to make most the used portions of the app easily accessible.
Gave an overview first with the most important information to the users: The dashboard not only helped the user to understand on what to act first. I also replaced some information with other important items value-able for employees. (Business driven requirement to show potential "Risks" in the project)
Review Requests and Comments
Review requests and comments combined and streamlined: Review requests and comments were initially separated but logically there were connected. From our research we also found out that users felt a mismatch in this as well. Thus, in this designed I combined both of them in a structured way.
Removed pop ups and designed two panel view: Pop ups for view every review request and comment was hindering user's experiences. Multiple in depth pop ups made the experience even worse. Two panel view helped the user in viewing all the reviews in the left pane and the details in right.
Redesigned filters: Filters were not easy to use so redesigned the filters accordingly keeping the two panel view in mind.
Usability issues and User problems uncovered
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A survey conducted after one month of the launch of the redesigned tool showed that most of the users found that the navigation had improved and it helped them decide on what to act on first:
found that the new design helped them in deciding on what to act on first
83%
found the navigation was improved
93%
Images have been blurred purposely to hide any confidential
information
Some users needed complex filters in project dashboard. To quickly test the new designs out, I created different low fidelity designs and printed them. I also printed a black and white screen shot of the previous interface (before redesign). By combining both these prototypes I did a quick ( ~2 hours) testing with our users (internal users) to check its usability.
To check whether the newly designed navigation was complex, we tested them out as well in a similar way.
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Challenges
Results and Impact
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Unique Method
Each user group had different task flows and needs from the application. Satisfying each user group with one design was a challenge. ​
What we could resolve
Solution:
Prioritization of the tasks of each user group, focusing on areas with maximum impact.
“You shouldn’t design what users tell you they want but rather what they need.”
In the summative tests, some new design ideas didn't match the mental models of rest of the project leaders.
What we couldn't resolve
What I would have done differently:
This could also have been avoided if the high fidelity prototypes were tested again with the users.
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The Detailed Process
Storyboarding - Andy the Developer
Data Gathering and Analysis
High Level user journey map
Flow diagrams
Iteration 1
Clickable prototypes of low fidelity prototypes
All Videos
Interaction Maps
Recently I had written an article about how I like to break my designs. It is a process where I try to evaluate my own designs and see where it is weak/could break before I get it reviewed by my team or go into another iteration.
Breaking my designs
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“You shouldn’t design what users tell you they want.” - Lesson learnt the hard way.
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Working within constraints of time and resources.
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Gained an understanding of how to align design goals with business goals
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Spent quality time analyzing the usage of the software and its existing design.
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Piloted Usability Tests in the company with this project.
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Gained new perspectives while working closely with project leader,developers and testers.
Learnings
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