The Jackson Laboratory Service Portal. Creating a centralized experience for users to access and exchange all research project information. Streamlining current processes to increase customer satisfaction and project success.
Project Details
Wire-framed, designed, prototyped, and facilitated research to create a new service portal for both customers and internal employees.
The service portal consisted of many features ranging from billing and project management, to messaging and documentation. The UX Lead and I divided our tasks evenly and everything I was assigned to I fully owned, meaning I took the lead on those features and did all the work on my own. Ultimately, the features I owned were the Sign In and Sign Up Experience, the Messaging feature, the Document Library, and the Account pages.
Timeframe: 7 months
Team: 1 UX Lead, 1 Product Manager
The Problem
The current Service Portal, known as JAX Connect, falls short of meeting users needs. Users do not trust the Portal to provide them with accurate data or timely communication, often causing projects to miss timelines and go over budget.
Understanding the Problem
First, I needed to familiarize myself with who my users were and the problems they currently faced in the old JAX Connect portal.
To do so, I first sifted through past research that had been done prior to my time at JAX to create 3 new user personas. This was a great activity for my to not only get experience building a persona, but also truly get familiar with all the information surrounding the project I would be working.
To aid in making the personas I organized my notes into empathy maps and iterated on my findings until I landed on the resulting personas.
How might we…
Completed a “How might we…” activity in order to validate that I understood the problems the users were currently facing and begin ideating on solutions.
The Problem at a Feature Specific Level
Similar to when I first joined, before I could find a solution, I needed to look back at JAX Connect and understand how users interacted and felt about each feature to understand what needed to change about each experience.
The Problem: Sign In and Sign Up Experience
Users, both new and old, need an intuitive and secure way to access their service portal projects. The new experience also needed to fit into the new design system.
The Problem: Messages
Customers need a reliable system to exchange project information on. For project success, they need regular cadence communication with timely responses. (See previous pop-out window experience to the left)
The Problem: Document Library
Users, both new and old, need an intuitive and secure way to access their service portal projects. The new experience also needed to fit into the new design system. (See previous pop-out window experience to the left)
The Problem: Account
JAX wants to provide customers with as much of a self-service system as possible, which includes allowing users to manage their own projects and team members.
Design Phase
Lots of iteration throughout this project! I was constantly meeting with internal users and uncovering new ideas and problems to solve. These conversations were informal, but crucial to get to the correct solution.
For a more in depth case study that goes into detail on these conversations as well as the resulting iterations please reach out to me directly :)
Iterating
Again, lots of steps in between. I started with low fidelity paper sketches, then brought those into digital lo-fi wireframes, and finally continued iterating over and over landing on high fidelity wireframes that could be brought into user testing.
My team met weekly with stakeholders to gain more feedback, which is what our iterations were mainly based off of.
Sign In and Sign Up Wireframes for Usability Testing
Accounting for both external and internal JAX Employee users. This included building out an invitation system for external users to gain access to the portal.
Messaging Wireframes for Usability Testing
Built out all flows in between viewing a message, starting a new message, sending a document, and archiving old messages. Aimed to fully immerse testing participants in what the portal would be like if it were really online.
Document Library Wireframes for Usability Testing
The document library included viewing documents, uploading a new document, downloading a document, exploring filters etc.
Account Wireframes for Usability Testing
Account feature includes everything from your profile to inviting members and assigning them to projects. These pages ended up relating to the Sign Up experience as this is where the invitation and verification of that member would happen.
Testing Phase
Conducted 12 total Usability Tests, 5 with external customers and 7 with internal JAX users. Our goal was to test the usability of our designs and validate that our solution was actually helpful. The structure of each test was task based. I would prompt participants “Show me how you would… do this…” and from there ask follow-up questions uncovering their thoughts, feelings, and struggles in a non-biased way.
Iterating on the Test Script
The test script began with an assumption mapping activity to begin forming questions to ask.
After the script was finalized, a task priortization activity was completed in order to rank the most important things we wanted to cover in the test sessions. This was a precaution as the portal was extremely dense so we wanted to really utilize our time with users effectively.
Conducting the Usability Tests
I led 5 of the 12 hour long test sessions.
Analysis
To visualize my findings, I made an affinity map and organized themes into feedback grids. This helped me quickly understand what needed to change, what worked well, new ideas, and unanswered questions.
User Test Report
To visualize findings in a more professional and digestible way for stakeholders. Clearly defining what worked well and what didn’t with supporting icons, stats, and images. This was a very lengthy deck as each feature contained insights, a conclusion, and design recommendations.
Design Sprint
Wrapping up my time at The Jackson Laboratory, I participated in a design sprint where I was able to fully see the Service Portal project through. The Sprint consisted of goal mapping, sketching, and my “final” high fidelity wireframed solution.
Goal Mapping
Verifying that each task still made since post findings. Understanding any additional pages/step I needed to add or any pages/step I needed to remove.
Sketching
Bring the goal mapping flows into low fidelity sketches and reconsidering page layout and navigation.
Refined Designs/Final Solution!
This is as far as I was able to take the Service Portal project in my time at JAX.
Sign In and Sign Up
Crucial that 100% of users can successfully sign in to access the portal.
Messages
Creating a more intuitive experience that ensures users will be able to find information easily.
Documents
Optimizing the organization of documents to increase product adoption.
Account
Streamlining and condensing the Account pages to increase clarity on self-service options.
What I learned
It’s crucial to ask questions! Ask users and your team members! Especially when working with a lot of information, reaching out to others to gain more insights will help you better understand the problem and what is needed out of your solution. Part of the process is not knowing the answer. It’s okay, and normal, to iterate and refine your solution A LOT.