CPSUI REDESIGN
Aug 2017 - Mar 2018
When I started working I was tasked on redesigning a legacy software component and to be built using a new CRM platform. As the only interface designer and still an intern, this was a big challenge but it turned out to be an absolutely great learning experience. Over the course of this project I improved a lot on my design and research skills, but what has been most valuable about this experience is the soft skills like presenting my work in a way that will get the story across and yield me the most useful feedback, managing expectations, making the team feel involved, time management, and more. In part due to me still being a novice back then, and in part due to the team and vision constantly changing this project was pretty tough but I’m very proud of the end result.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted most of the confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of my current organization.
My Role.
During this project, I have taken the roles of researcher, designer and part UI developer. Developers have been consulted regularly for feedback and ideas since the PEGA PRPC business rules based CRM software platform was primarily used as the foundation.
The Project.
The old system was serving meaningful interaction between the Customer Service Representatives and Members for past 20 years but only for one telephone number. With new methods of communication came the need to update member specific contact information adding capability to store text messaging numbers, multiple phones and emails with varied combinations allowing “Do Not Call” legal information storage.
However, the biggest problems with this platform were:
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Members had their contact preferences set in different systems and CSR’s unable to get hold of all information in one place.
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The navigation was very unconventional and changed based on context, which made the platform very hard to navigate.
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The structure and code weren’t ready for expanding and innovating.
After we decided to completely rebuild the platform, the main challenge was figuring out how it should be structured to solve these 3 problems and to make sure CSR’s have the right tools. We wanted to help CSR’s who were highly experienced to be more efficient with this new approach but at the same time improve on learnability on the new product for the fresh CSR's.
User Centered Design approach.
research.
We started with collecting all the feedback and questions we had gotten through support to get an idea of what our business users were looking for and what they had problems with. Also, I did interviews with some of the CSR’s, to find out what kinds of methods they used and how. I wanted to know how they used their software and multi-tasked between taking calls and updating the data, what they needed for that, what upsides and downsides of their current approach were, and why they made the choices they did.
For a complete image, I also interviewed the product owner to hear about their experiences, since they are a very important part of our user group.
After the interviews I observed how CSR’s structure their work on existing systems and on our old platform, to see what kinds of databases currently get created and what kinds of workarounds they do when not having access to all the tools they need.
ideate.
After interviewing and there after many brainstorming sessions, and making everyone aware of the priorities, came the tough part of making sure everyone on the team believed in my new design approach. The ideation part was very difficult during this project and was the part that probably lasted until the end, way until the end of the design phase. Since there wasn’t a very clear vision yet, so I started sketching mock ups, building wire-frames alongside discussions with the development team. I had to adhere to the PEGA CRM Model for my layouts and studying other solutions helped in conceptualizing.
design.
Finally, we settled on to a conceptual workflow for the business process. The new system structure would be way simpler and would allow CSR’s to easily handle multiple service requests for the different sets of Members of the Healthcare insurance plans. The system would be based on a PEGA CRM platform. The guided workflow would ensure both the CSR and Members didn’t feel like they could miss something, and CSR’s would be able to help Members quickly.
Then upon coming up with multiple approaches via Axure HIFI prototypes, I started presenting to the business users to help them understand our new design. With the near to real prototypes, they could clearly see the value on how the Customer Service would improve from now on. The prototypes were finalized by iterating through several rounds of testing.
There was a requirement to allow the CSR’s to be able to quickly check the contact details of a Member without logging in. This was provided alongside keeping security for the updates requiring logging in according to the CSR’s correct credentials. Giving choice for allowing customers to have their telephone numbers to be placed on Do Not Call list was utmost important and to be implemented in accordance to the company’s legal policy.
All UI screens were designed according to the UI/UX guidelines and Heuristics, and keeping PEGA platform features in mind. This required a learning curve from my side as I was new to PEGA but that’s where my previous software development skills came handy. I could collaborate with the PEGA certified developers and this helped me to come up with useable, clean, easy and efficient Interface design.
There was a need to display all the Member contact details viz., their email, telephone numbers, text numbers, mailing addresses and communication preferences set to their benefits from their health care plan to be shown on one single page. This was challenging to have a clean design without cluttering every detail on one page. The following 2 pages show how information was grouped in 2 tabs so that the Member could handle every contact details and not miss out on anything.
link to the Hi-Fi prototype in AXURE
e-learning of Customer Service Representatives
As per the legal Telecommunications policy of the company, Customer Service Representatives needed to be trained before the new software was launched. Since the software was under development and QA testing, the Hi-Fi prototype was used by the e-Learning team to facilitate their training program.
Some comments
"The new system is modern, clean and is very easy to understand".
"CSR’s can easily and confidently do all their updates without getting confused".
"CSR’s can handle more calls than before because the new system is very fast and a lot of fun to use".