B2B SaaS Platform
Ovvio's Story
What if by using intuitive UX modules we could help the professional service industry save time and money?
Company
Ovvio, a specialized SaaS platform tailored for professional services, addressing the unique challenges of managing multiple client projects simultaneously.
My Role
Lead Product Designer
Acting Product Manager
UX Research Lead
Strategic Design Leadership
Cross-Functional Collaborator
Design Delivery and Quality Assurance
Pain Points
Managing multiple projects with different teams and deadlines while servicing multiple clients simultaneously is extraordinarily challenging.
-
Project fragmentation across multiple clients and teams
-
Fragmented information causing communication breakdowns
-
Time drain from constant context-switching
-
Lack of real-time visibility into project status and
team capacity
Time Line
2021 - 2024
How did it all begin?
Ovvio SaaS platform was designed by engineers and strategists with a shared concern for the lack of work management solutions in the market. I joined this great team to improve usability and overall experience, and started the redesign -of course- with deep research!
Addressing the users
​Our defined users, employees from professional services sectors, have a hectic work environment and an impossible rhythm. Keeping track of multiple team tasks, their priorities and progress; as well as client and team meetings that create new agendas every day is a huge undertaking for each project. In this type of work schedule, using a work management solution that is absolutely right for this purpose is crucial.
With all that said, it was clear that the platform needed to be simple, straightforward and meaningful.
Screenshot from the platform's 1st version
With all that said, it was clear that the platform needed to be simple, straightforward and meaningful.
It's research time...
1. Understanding the users' journey
2. Exploring what's out there (Market research)
To extend my familiarity with the subject from my previous work experience, I started with understanding our users’ journey alongside a market research. I used design thinking tools to create empathy maps and conducted interviews to extract all of the user pain points.​
Empathy Map for our intended users
Research methods
Interviews
Actual users
Potential users
Market research
Reading habits statistics
Competing services study
Popular platforms - user behaviour research
Customer journey
Three main personas
Workshops
Design thinking
Crazy 8
Prototyping & Testing
Stakeholders
Actual users
Potential users
Analysis
Target group​
Men and women, employees from professional services sectors- lawyers, account managers, architects etc. At the age of 20+, around the globe.
Target group's behaviour
-
Not extra technological- their preferred tool is notebook
-
Conservative work methods
-
Work many hours
-
Hectic work environment
-
Juggling between multiple bosses/teams/clients
Keep it simple,
make it meaningful.
What if by using intuitive UX modules we could help the professional service industry save time and money?
Possible Solutions
Problams are always "opportunities".
Just a different perspective.
To finalize the discovery phase I came up with 5 main opportunities and used the HMW (How Might We) questions method to phrase the next steps:
01
Project success depends on the communication between team members. This might be tricky when working with multiple teams on multiple projects, communication and data failures might occur.
How might we reduce the error range caused by communication failures?
Unified collaboration hub for cross-project communication
02
Managers often don’t know what the workload is on each team member. This can cause overload on some, which will have an impact on projects’ timeline.
How might we enable a high-level view of multiple projects and teams' status to ensure projects stay within their schedule?
Role-based dashboards for focused task management
03
Reporting to multiple people in the process, requires time, which is a rare resource…
How might we reduce the time required to update and stay updated on project status, organize and transfer data between all people involved?
One-click updates for instant, multi-level reporting
04
Managers are often unsure which part of the process in which project is complete and which isn’t.
How might we empower managers to feel confident that each part of every project is fully done?
Cross-project workload management for balanced resource allocation
Design Process
From definition to solution
We decided to focus on three main personas:
-
Top level manager
-
Project manager
-
Team member
Empath driven persona analysis
-
Utilized Customer Journey Mapping to visualize user experiences
-
Implemented Empathy Mapping techniques to deep-dive into persona insights
-
Conducted Behavioral Analysis across journey touchpoints
-
Employed User-Centered Design principles to identify pain points and opportunities
Customer Journey & Empathy Map
Insights
Target group is less tech-savvy - 
They prefer non-digital tools like paper and pen
Conservative work methods
Matrixed organization structure
Collaboration across multiple teams
Reporting to multiple managers (functional and project)
Need for tools that enable communication and task management across different projects and hierarchies
Need to increase productivity for mid-low managers
Architecting the user experience
-
Developed User-Centric Information Architecture
-
Designed Persona-Specific Workflow Optimizations
-
Created Object Relationship Maps for System Coherence
Materialize
From concept to prototype
​Following the 4 opportunities I defined, I proceeded the steps
-
Synthesized Research Insights
-
Developed Low and High-Fidelity Wireframes
-
Conducted Iterative User Testing
-
Secured Stakeholder Alignment
-
Implemented Agile Design Sprints
Various wireframes to test and implement our ideas
01
Collaboration.
02
Focus.
03
Easy & Instant Updates.
04
High Level Workload Management.
Usability testing
I developed a clickable prototype from the wireframes and carried out usability tests involving diverse user personas and internal stakeholders. Through task assignments and careful observation of their interactions with the system, I pinpointed crucial pain points and refined the main screen in accordance with the acquired insights.
Main insights and conclusions:
-
Aligning data hierarchy with user's intuitive work flow.
​ -
Arranging and categorizing data is essential due to the vast amount of information.
​ -
As a result of a shift in business strategy from a "bottom-up" to a "top-down" approach, the product's primary objective of "virility" became obsolete. Consequently, the new key performance indicators (KPIs) were centered around generating a substantial volume of content within the system.
Before and after usabilty testings
Setting Ovvio's tone
Ovvio is a complex software with many functions and view options - it was built to hold a huge amount of data. Therefore, I had to find a way to create a graphic language that fits the mood board but above all is functional, practical, and clear.
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Reflecting the Process
-
Complexity Unveiled: Explored the intricacies of designing for a SaaS platform, specifically tailored for professional services employees.
-
Iterative Design: Highlighted the iterative nature of the design process, emphasizing the need for continuous refinement to meet diverse user needs.
-
Functionality vs. Simplicity: Addressed the challenge of balancing robust functionality with an intuitive user interface, recognizing the importance of both.
-
Workflow Integration: Explored how each component of the interface contributes to the overall workflow, ensuring a seamless and efficient user experience.
-
Dynamic User Journey: Emphasized that the success of UX/UI design goes beyond visuals, focusing on the dynamic flow of the user's journey and its evolution with feedback and technological advancements.
-
User-Centric Approach: Showcased a commitment to refining and optimizing the user experience, acknowledging the unique challenges and opportunities within the realm of SaaS platforms for professional services productivity.