Working within the time constraints, I used a combination of surveys and user interviews with several folks from the Onboarding team (the core user) to gather insights for the redesign. Key takeaways included:
Users were spending several hours a week troubleshooting file errors
Most of the time spent on migrations was figuring out why a file failed
Uploading was confusing (there was only 2 file statuses; uploaded or failed)
There was a general distrust of the new admin dashboard
The correct formatting that’s needed from a file wasn't clear
I had Onboarding walk me through the process of how they currently were uploading a migration file on the old dashboard. The entire process was recorded for further team review and ingested via Dovetail.
I began with a hypothesis that by a) helping users better understand what is needed for a file upload, b) providing actionable help for navigating upload errors, and c) by better displaying file upload status, we could reduce error troubleshooting time spent by the Onboarding team and improve the experience.
Tracking baseline customer rating scores and following internal stakeholder meetings to surface pain points, we had a clear idea of what the Onboarding team desired:
Clear CSV file acceptance criteria
Track file upload progress easily at a glance
Know exactly why a file upload failed
Modern user interface and experience
Ability to search/filter for past migrations
After defining the MVP with the team and defining phase criteria, I brainstormed with my PM on how we could determine success for this project: we ultimately decided on tracking 3 key things – adoption rate, error task completion time, and customer satisfaction scores.
Solution: The upload system needs to keep users updated on exactly what is happening.
We created new statuses to clearly label what stage a file was in to deliver a reliable and predictable experience, and to ensure accessibility, buttons were aligned with the strictest WCAG standards for contrast ratios. To improve upload visualization, we introduced a progress bar complete with upload percentage, which users loved!
Solution: Working with the constraints provided earlier from Engineering, we were able to solve for the use-case when a user has multiple files loading into the system at the same time.
To reduce stress on the backend, we would allow multiple files to be able to "pre-verify", but only allow one file at a time to inject into the database.
Solution: The layout should highlight essential elements while reducing clutter. We added the file name and file icon to each respective upload, new headers to identify what status a file was in (with a tool-tip for further details) and a file search and sort via status/date functions.
Users really liked these changes as this helped them reduce scrolling and speed up the search in the case that there were multiple file uploads over time, and – instead of just a long list of uploads, the new design improved the hierarchy to give a clearer overview of all file upload statuses at a glance.
Solution: The upload system should provide guidance and actionable steps to help users diagnose errors.
In the instance that a file has errors preventing its upload, we provide an overview of the general formatting errors, how to fix them, and the ability to download the error log for a closer look on what went wrong.
Tracking the success metrics we set early on, we were excited to see that post-launch, we had achieved an adoption rate of 100% by the Onboarding team! Other key wins included:
39% reduction in error task completion time – the new file validation flow catches errors early in the upload process and guides them through error resolution; users spend less time overall troubleshooting files!
Increased customer ratings – surveys reported strong gains in ease of use, trust, and feelings of innovation in a cross analysis scoring of the old design vs. the new design
Team members felt more empowered – through the new CSV template button and the error log help, the team is able to take troubleshooting matters into their own hands