THE CHALLENGE

DISRUPTING THE CONSULTING INDUSTRY

When I joined Signals Analytics, a successful company with multiple 'Fortune 1000' companies as clients and years of consulting experience, it was looking to expand its offering in the form of a product. Transforming a service-oriented offering into a pre-packaged product is a challenging task, especially in a world that is dominated by consultants. While the company had a clear buyer persona, the user persona appeared to be a different user. Proividing value to both user types proved to be challenging as well.

APPROACH

ANALYSIS MADE EASY

As with any new product I started with intensive research, both internal and external. My first insight was that performing good analysis and making sense of large amounts of data is not an easy task for most of our clients. Even if someone reaches some kind of insight, connecting several insights in order to reach an actionable conclusion is extremely difficult.

The first goal was to create an experience which simplified the process of analysing a large amount of data points and reaching actionable insights. I defined a new and improved information architecture. Clearly defined principles were used as guidelines during the development of our new product offering. One of the main principles was that at every point during the user's journey, it should be clear what the user is looking at, how they got there, and how to move forward. Just providing answers to questions was not an option since in many cases, people don't know what questions should be asked.

RESEARCH

ESTABLISHING THE USER PERSONA

After the initial research we were able to define our main user persona. Understanding the persona's goals, fears, skills, and day to day tasks, allowed better understanding of the product needs and its overarching experience. During my research I spoke with our team of highly skilled analysts and multiple existing and potential customers.

UNDERSTANDING WORK PROCESSES

Knowing the user was one of the many aspects needed to develop an engaging product. By understanding the customers' work processes we were able to better understand the usecases and adjust our content offering accordingly.

A CLEAR PRODUCT FLOW

For the new product vision we created a clear product flow which ensured ease-of-use and retention. The flow included different scenarios for different types of users.

THE RESULT

A NEW APPROACH

After having developed our first release, it was received with great enthusiasm both internally and externally. The product and UX vision have been part of the company's product development and its continued success. Signals has raised over $55M of funding of which $25M was received after the new product vision was introduced.

Introducing UX into the organization proved to be a success as well, with different teams implementing UX principals into their day-to-day work. I left the company with a small, fully functioning UX team in place.

WORK METHODOLOGIES

WORKING AS ONE TEAM

Building and maintaining a large product demands clearly defined work methodologies. We set up a design system in full cooperation with the development team. Combined with elaborate user stories, this left little room for inconsistencies, communicational errors, and unclarities.