Dashboard
  
Data Visualization

Act-on Automation

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Automated Programs constitute a fundamental feature of the Act-On marketing automation platform. They empower marketers to deliver tailored and personalized messages to their contacts through an automated manner. However, this crucial aspect of the product has remained largely unchanged since its creation. This project is centered around the redesign the Automation dashboard, with the primary objective of mitigating customer frustrations and and streamlining the transition process.
PROJECT DETAILS
Role
Duration
Design Lead
July - November 2022
KEY CONTRIBUTIONS
User Interview, Product Design, Usability Testing
PROJECT GOAL
Redesign the Automation Dashboard user interface to help customers understand the performance of their automated programs.

Results

The adoption and engagement rates for the Automation Dashboard have remained consistently high since the product's initial launch. We've witnessed a significant enhancement in customer satisfaction rates. However, there are still a few outstanding customer requests that require attention and resolution.

60K
Total number of automated programs in use
20K
Automated programs are running
73%
Accounts have at least one Automated Program
+15%
Adoption rate increased in 8 months
01.

define

We talked to our internal stakeholders including the Custom Success, Tech Support, and Marketing teams to understand their pain points.

competitor analysis
Market Research
02.

Ideate

We consolidated what we learned from these interviews and narrowed down the features for a user-friendly Automation dashboard.

Interviews
design workshop
Stakeholder workshop
03.

Protoype

The team designed mid-fi prototypes and prepared for the first round of usability testing.

Interviews
Prototyping
Internal USABILITY TESTING
04.

Test

The team tested the mid-fi prototype with users to validate some of our design assumptions. We then refined some of our design decisions with a hi-fidelity prototype and tested it again.

Usability Testing
Prototyping
05.

Iterate

The team is actively gathering feedback from customer calls and testing sessions to refine and enhance the feature. The iterative process allowed us to continuously improve the product with timely customer feedback.

Customer feedback

EMPATHISE & DEFINE

Through a design workshop, we identified the main pain points that we want to address in the redesign.
‍
Among those, we see that users struggle with getting started with automations and understand how their programs are performing.

IDEATE

We consolidated what we learned from these interviews and narrowed down the features a user-friendly Automation dashboard should have. To further generate ideas, we fomulated the brainstorming question as:
How might we help customers measure and understand the impact of automations?

Prototype

Data

Analyze the success of automated lead nurturing programs.

Contact Lists

Quickly locate contacts in each program step.

Performance

Track the success of email and SMS campaigns with an easy-to-use reporting dashboard, and make data-driven decisions for better results.

Steps

Tie the visual language of the Automated Journey Builder (AJB) into a digestible view, and guide users to the AJB when they’re ready to edit their program.

Micro-interactions

Micro-interactions that guide users to pause, start and fix program errors.
AP empty state

Branding moments & contextual help

We identified branding moments and areas where we could provide more contextual help.

Test

We wanted to learn about a few key areas in our high fidelity designs, including the discoverability of the Edit Program and Add New Contacts actions.

In addition, we wanted to understand whether users want to search their email message reports within a program, and how easy it is to understand new design patterns we’ve introduced in the dashboard.

Discoverability of the Edit Program

Due to project constraints, users were initially required to pause program before making any changes. In order to access the clarity of this design, we conducted usability testing with 5 users. In the first round, only 1 out of 5 participants successfully paused the program in version A. As a result, we made some adjustments for the second round by removing the overflow menu and surfacing the "Pause Program" button. This change significantly improved user comprehension.
Usability testing image
In Version A, we nested all program actions in a meatball menu associated with the Run/Pause action in the dashboard header.
For Version B, we surfaced some of these actions in the dashboard interface.

Add New Contacts Actions

We wanted to notify users that they have new contacts waiting to be manually added to the program on a schedule. In the initial round, some users encountered confusion, mistaking the "Contacts added on a schedule" text as a clickable element. To address this, in version B, we implemented a solution by providing a clarifying tooltip with additional information. This satisfied the issue of the icon looking clickable, while also associating the action with the alert.
Usability testing imageUsability testing image
In Version A, 2 out of 5 users thought the Add New Contacts icon was clickable rather than looking elsewhere for an action.
In Version B, we made the informational blurb appear less actionable, and then placed it beside the action menu that allows users to manually add contacts.

Data Cards

The data cards were overall easy to understand in both versions. Preferences where almost evenly divided, with two users highlighting a potential redundancy in the information presented in Version B. Based on those insights, we concluded that Version A was the way to go.
Usability testing imageUsability testing image
In Version A, we only showed the number of contacts in each stage, and didn’t show the total contacts for each data card.
In Version B, we added the total contacts count for each data card.

Email Performance

We faced a decision regarding the design of the "All Emails" data - whether to use a table format or data cards. In Version A, there was a misconception that the "All Emails" table served as a summary of the "Individual Emails". To address this, we redesigned the "All Emails" section, aiming to establish a clearer distinction and reduce the perceived connection to "Individual Email".
Email performance Version AEmail performance Version B
In Version A, we designed email summary section in a table and placed percentages and unique values on the same row.
In Version B, we redesigned the email summary so that it would feel less tied into the table of individual emails. We also indicated that more information was available by adding a dotted underline and further details in a tooltip.

ITERATE

In March 2022, we successfully launched the new Automation dashboard. Since its release, we've witnessed consistently high adoption and engagement rates. Additionally, this project has unveiled improved design patterns that hold potential for implementation in other areas of the product. Our ongoing efforts focus on validating the user interface at scale, prioritizing a seamless and enjoyable experience for marketers.

RETROSPECTIVE

By listening to our users and making changes that provided real value to them, we drastically improved the UX and UI for one of the core functions of the product. I grew as a designers and our team walked away with a few takeaways:
Internal stakeholders feedback can be super valuable too.Listening to external user feedback can help you narrow in on the nuances, but sometimes internal stakeholders like the Technical Support team and Customer Success Team understand users struggles with a more holistic view.
Involve the engineering team by asking them be part of the usability testing.We had regular check-in meetings with the engineering team even when we were still in the research phase. We also invited some engineers to do usability testing tasks and asked them to provide feedback. It helped our design handoff process to be relatively smooth.

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