SkillSuite Flows Feature

USER EXPERIENCE AND VISUAL INTERFACE DESIGN

Experience and interface design for Flows feature in SkillSuite software.

We designed a new flows feature to provide a place to set up actions related to a course.

COMPANY OVERVIEW
SkillSuite is a training tool for business employees. SkillSuite helps businesses minimize the headache for training and employees and makes it easy for business leaders to share training materials and track employee progress.

THE TEAM
1 UX Designer, 6 Developers, 1 Product Owner

SkillSuite Flows Feature

How did I have impact?

THE ROLE I PLAYED IN THIS PROJECT
Icon - Product Strategy

Developing product strategy and simple user research with stakeholders

Icon - User Experience

Creating, developing, and presenting new user experience ideas

Icon - Interface Design

Designing interface, creating prototype, and doing usability testing

Icon - Work With Developers

Worked closely with developers to ensure high quality work

What was the problem?

I AM A PROBLEM SOLVER

Stakeholders noticed confusion on how to connect different actions related to courses.

SkillSuite saw a need to for creating complex flows and actions related to courses through creating a flows feature.
1
It wasn’t clear how to require one course to be completed before another.
2
Lacked a way to set up notifications related to courses.
3

It was hard to combine multiple actions together.

SkillSuite - Emails & Automations

Proposed solutions to the problem

PRODUCT STRATEGY

After having previously tried a concept called Tracks, we concluded a new Flows feature would help with the need for creating multiple actions or complex flows related to courses.

Icon - Tracks
Tracks

Our first rendition, but it wasn’t clear how it related to assigning courses.

Icon - Hierarchy
Flows

The concept was more complex, but with more options on combining different actions related to a course or courses.

SkillSuite - Flows - Enrollment
ANY CHALLENGES TO WORK AROUND?

Not every situation allows for the ideal experience design process for a development team. I experienced the following challenges while working on this project:

Icon - User Research

Lack of User Research

A lack of user research before beginning to design the user experience can lead to some poor choices being made based on thoughts or opinions with proof of what a user actually needs.

Icon - Stakeholder Pushback

Stakeholder Pushback

Oftentimes those who are emotionally invested in the project are so focused on what they think is important that they automatically assume they know what the user wants. When those wants don’t match up, it can result in wasted time and money.

Icon - Timelines

Rushed Timelines

Rushing the design process can result in lower quality design and development because of not allowing the necessary time to think through any potential problems or properly test ideas.

Icon - Roadmap

Lack of Roadmapping

Skipping the original standard process of long-term roadmapping for a product can often result in wasted time and money because of lack of planning for the long term goals of a product.

Experience Design

WIREFRAMED SOLUTIONS
First, I mapped out the experience of where flows would be located in the software and what options would be needed and useful for users.
SkillSuite - Wireframes - Flows 1
Next, I mapped out the details and settings for actions, timing, and conditional logic.
SkillSuite - Wireframes - Flows 2
SkillSuite - Wireframes - Flows 3
SkillSuite - Wireframes - Flows 4
Next, I mapped out templates for the most common flows that would be used by users.
SkillSuite - Wireframes - Flows 5
SkillSuite - Wireframes - Groups, Permissions 2

Proposed solutions to the problem

PRODUCT STRATEGY
SkillSuite - Flows2

Zach, CEO, creates flows within the new SkillSuite flows feature and can set up the most common actions for course trainings for his employees.

SkillSuite - Flows - Example

Kristi, the HR Manager, sets up flows for each training course for new employees, setting up the correct order of completion along with notifications for managers.

How did it improve?

PROTOTYPE
Business managers can more easily create flows to combine multiple actions related to courses.

Having flows instead of settings in admin settings is more clear on how to create combined actions for course enrollment, notifications, etc.

BEFORE
SkillSuite Track Builder
AFTER
SkillSuite Flows

How did it do?

The flows feature is proving to be a useful user experience.

"Flows looks easy-to-use and understand, and it also looks powerful compared to other tools."

– SKILLSUITE USER –

 

RESULTS
Icon - Flows

Ability to set up multiple actions related to the same course

Icon - Courses

Ability to assign multiple courses to employees and require a certain order for completion

Icon - Email

Easier to find the email builder and see its correlation to a flow or a course

Icon - Intuitive

Flows was more intuitive than the original Tracks concept

What did I learn?

I learned positive things and where there was room for improvement.

POSITIVE TAKEAWAYS

Icon - Simplified
You can have a complex feature, but it’s important to simplify it as much as possible.
Icon - Templates

Users like templates to help simplify the set up process.

ROOM FOR GROWTH
Icon - Mobile

It’s hard to make a feature like this mobile-friendly

Icon - Roadmapping
Appropriate long term planning and roadmapping
Icon - Timelines
More time and not being rushed