Research-Led Rapid Redesign
Reclaiming User Management
Project Portal (PP) was updated a couple years before I started working at ddms, called PP “modern”. IT did not include all of the functionality from PP Classic. A repeated pain point was managing users across multiple projects. During the creation of the multi-project management that I worked on, I redesigned user management to better meet the needs of admins.
My Role
As the sole User Experience Designer, I decided to use the following methods:
Discovery Phase
Though not malicious, there was a lot PP Modern User Management couldn't do.
Context
This User Management redesign was done as part of the creation of a “portfolio” feature, which enabled connectivity between different projects. In PP Classic, when adding a new user it was possible to add them to multiple projects at once. In PP Modern a user can only be added to one project at a time. We had data showing the user management features from PP Classic were frequently used by ddms internal administrative level users.
Users will be called “admins” to distinguish them from the users they manage.
To learn what was working and identify pain points, I interviewed users of the current products to learn what I could. I asked questions to gain knowledge for Information Hierarchy as well as knowledge design. I also had them walk me through PP Classic’s User Management while thinking out loud to see how it worked for them.
Biggest Takeaways from User Interviews
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The biggest issue was that adding a user to multiple projects was not possible in PP Modern. This created a lot of task repetition if done in PP Modern. This was possible in PP classic but was still missing usability.
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User permission level wasn’t exposed to our admins across projects
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The depth of permission control was lacking
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There were no ways to easily assess a user’s activity level.
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The admins who were able to use this feature set weren’t willing to do it themselves, and often deferred doing this to a handful of ddms employees.
Define Phase
Pain Points
Using my knowledge of heuristics and task analysis I defined the pain points.
1. Unmet Need. This was an oversight that was very important for user management
How might we enable cross project user management?
2. System status issue. PP Modern required entering into each individual project to see a user’s permissions, and classic would only show if a user was able to access a project.
How might we expose user statuses?
How might we empower our admins ability to control user permissions?
3. Unmet Need. Neither PP Classic or Modern were designed to meet the needs of users, suggesting the needs were never researched or discovered.
How might we expose useful user use information?
4. System status issue. In PP modern, there were obtuse features to try and answer this.
How might we improve the usability?
5. Usability issue. People not using a feature set that is useful suggest obtuse design/usability.
Develop Phase
Gallery of selected ideation sketches
User Flows: Red Routes
Red Routes are a great first prototype so I put those together.
Create New User
Know who needs to be added-> new portfolio home -> new user management -> add new user -> enter info -> select permission level -> select user groups -> select projects -> confirm ||
Role Permissions Management
Know who needs to be added-> new portfolio home -> new user management -> add new user -> enter info -> select permission level -> select user groups -> select projects -> confirm ||
Edit Existing User
Select a user -> edit user settings -> confirm ||
