Scalable SaaS Through Unified Design (2021-2022)
Kinetic Software is a specialist in the HE Sector in the UK & US, transitioning its established desktop application suite to the cloud as SaaS platforms. I worked within multiple teams of Product Owners, Junior UX, and an Agile Development team to incorporate feedback from existing customers and deliver the best features and functionality, enhancing the overall user experience.
Role & Key Outcomes:
I was the Senior & Lead Product Designer (UX/UI), focused on optimising efficiency and driving innovation. My work encompassed leading the design for legacy migration, managing a new UI framework, and developing strategic UX plans. My contributions led to significant reductions in support tickets and task completion times, alongside the introduction of mobile UI and a UX maturity plan to ensure a future-proof, user-centric platform.
- Legacy Migration to SaaS: Led the design for migrating the core section of a legacy desktop application to a SaaS platform. This resulted in a 25% increase in user satisfaction and a 30% reduction in support tickets.
- New UI Framework: Managed a team of designers to consolidate a new user interface framework, improving task completion times by 50% in key areas. This project improved design consistency and reduced development time, enhancing overall user experience.
- Strategic Planning: Prepared a strategic plan to improve user experience research and designs based on analysis and usability research, enhancing the current design and framework to be more modular.
- Mapping and Integration: Introduced a series of maps of the current SaaS platforms, illustrating how legacy features would be connected, showing relationships and dependencies.
- Design and Development Improvements: Developed ways to improve design and development, ensuring accessibility was integrated from the beginning rather than an afterthought.
- Mobile UI Development: Introduced a set of UI for mobile versions of the system for both B2C and B2B users.
- UX Maturity Plan: Created a plan for UX maturity, helping UX designers and product owners champion UX with measurable outcomes.
Key Objectives:
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Seamlessly migrate a PC-based application to the cloud.
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Introduce a compelling new online-only application offering.
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Significantly improve existing application workflows and processes.
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Drive successful user onboarding to the new platform.
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Increase overall user engagement and satisfaction.
- Develop and launch an initial B2C mobile version.
The Challenge:
Initial research and testing revealed significant hurdles, including low user satisfaction with the initial cloud onboarding (10%) and a tendency to revert to the desktop application. Heuristic evaluation highlighted platform inconsistencies, while usability tests showed low task success and long completion times. Furthermore, user expectations regarding new designs and functionality were misaligned, leading to a feeling of not being heard. Critically, team expectations were not fully aligned across Development, Sales, and Product, creating internal friction that needed to be addressed to ensure a cohesive and user-focused approach.
Our Approach & Impact:
To address these challenges, a user-centric strategy was implemented, focusing on early and continuous engagement with both users and internal teams, including Development, Sales, and Marketing. This involved ongoing surveys and feedback loops to foster alignment across all stakeholders. The creation and sharing of a comprehensive style guide and an optimised design system ensured consistency.
The impact of these actions was significant: redesigned features achieved nearly 100% onboarding success with actively involved users, generating additional interest from new customers. Furthermore, a proposed and initiated UX Strategy is now helping to align business goals with the expected value for customers and users, paving the way for a more cohesive and user-focused future.
