Partner Management - Redesign
One location to add and manage all event partners, while also maximizing the value of the partnership mix with ease and transparency.
One location to add and manage all event partners, while also maximizing the value of the partnership mix with ease and transparency.
At Upped Events Inc, I was privileged to lead the redesign of the Partner Management Module. I worked alongside another talented designer, Rachel Chan ,to complete this task. Upped Events is an all-in-one event experience platform that simplifies event management, and the goal of our project was to to make the Partner Management aspect of the platform more efficient and user-friendly.
Product Designer, UX Research, sketching, prototyping, Visual Design & Testing
2 Designers, Product Manager
2 months (Feb 2022 - April 2022)
Figma | FigJam | Slack
Partner Management is the module where Event Owners (EO) can add or manage their Event partners (Eg: vendors, speakers, sponsors, and contractors), assign responsibilities to the partners, and set due dates for reminders etc.
As the first step in this redesign, I understood how the existing module worked with the help of our Product Manager Louis Blitzman and made a list of all the user flows in that version. Later, I spoke with internal stakeholders to identify some of the issues with the system. The summary is what I found below:
99% of our users reportedly stated that the module was unintuitive, the information architecture was messy and many of the links were broken.
The module was designed 2 years ago and it was not consistent with the other sections of the app.
Event owners found it difficult to swiftly and effectively create tasks/milestones for their partners.
The module's flow was disjointed so the first-time users didn't comprehend many of the features and their purposes.
The tool didn't provide event owners a way to visualize all the tasks and deadlines in one location.
Ultimately, the goal is to allow Event Owners (EO) or users to be able to create tasks/milestones for their partners. To achieve this goal, the following objectives need be achieved:
Note: Milestones/Tasks will be used interchangeably throughout this case study.
Evaluate the existing application and make necessary modifications.
Streamline the user experience between different features.
Enhance usability, maintain consistency, and optimize performance.
Facilitate collaboration & enable EO's to invite partners to the platform.
Provide EO's to see all the event planning progress at a glance.
I used a design thinking process with a user-centered approach, which is all about problem-solving. Based on this method, I have built up my case. It will guide you through the different stages from research to the final product at the end.
Insights
Upped Events had already conducted generic customer and market research for event management platforms. I analyzed the competitor's apps to find out the main focus and solutions.
In addition to that, specifically for this Partner Management module, I conducted another market research that is associated with task management software in order to learn from successful products and discover potential gaps.
After the research phase, I did a complete audit of the existing partner management module. From the audit, I was able to identify the areas which needed the most improvements and also several accessibility issues.
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I started the project by analyzing what we already had and doing a competitive analysis of what's already out there. Using this, I created a hybrid flow/information architecture of the landing page, milestones section, and newly added calendar module. Throughout this, I paired up with my design partner Rachel and PM Louis in order to figure out the priority and what exactly the project requirements were.
Due to time constraints, we accelerated our design process by creating High-fidelity mockups for all the flows that we created earlier. While I designed the screens for the Calendar area and its drag & drop features, the adding new partner flow, and the main dashboard, my partner created the screens for the flow of adding new milestones.
By presenting the key screen wireframes to our product manager and the design team, we gained valuable feedback to design the next iterations. Although there were no usability catastrophes but made several tiny improvements to make the flow better which is highlighted below.
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My partner and I went through 5 different iterations of our design. After several iterations, we finished off all the screens for the Partner Management module. In the redesigned landing page, event owners can see all their event partners' information and the status of the milestones at a glance. The previous version was too text heavy so we have replaced it with user-friendly icons and profile images so it looks personalized and fun.
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In the previous version, when inviting partners to the portal, the event owner won't be able to send any message for them. So in the newer version, we created a flow by adding a message template and allowing event owners to customize their messages based on tags. EOs now can create as many templates as they want which eventually saves them time and effort.
The primary goal of the module is to set tasks/milestones for the partners. The latest version gives event owners more power by allowing them to create multiple reminders for each milestone they set for their partners in addition to setting milestones and due dates for them. This feature will ease the load on event owners and help them to manage events with ease.
The calendar view is the add-on benefit for the EOs as it allows them to assign milestones to individual partners and monitor their progress in one view. We designed it in a way that it feels familiar for event owners by using an intuitive board that lets them move the milestones and messages around.
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One of my favorite things about working at Upped Events was the attention to detail when we handed off designs. As a final step of this project, we created an interactive prototype and added the notes to the developers. In addition to it, we also updated all our new components in the shared library and updated our design system documentation.
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What went well?
Any Technical Constraints?
Key Learnings:
Working for Upped Events and especially this project was the first collaborative design project I've worked on. It was an extremely valuable opportunity - I learned how to work in a collaborative design team, how to communicate and present ideas with the manager and my other team members as a product designer, and how to prioritize design deliverables.
Note that this case study is a work in progress. Some of the modules I've worked on are currently under development. Despite the successful hand-off to developers, time & financial constraints deterred us from validating our design decisions and gaining user feedback.
With that being said, here are the lessons I learned during this experience:
- Make sure to establish clear and realistic deliverables to the team in the beginning.
- The importance of setting clear roles at the beginning between colleagues.
- Make sure to record every step taken throughout the process.
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