Client
Tehama Technologies
Duration
2 weeks
My Role
UX designer, Researcher
Tools
Figma, Adobe Illustrator
Recording of a user trying to access their desktop
Problem
New users must download and install the Tehama Client to use the virtual desktop. Unfortunately, many new users had trouble accessing their virtual desktops on their first try. This has led to an increase in support requests and frustration among stakeholders.
Solution
To improve user awareness of the Tehama Client and the steps required for its usage.
01. Research
Investigating the problem
To understand what was happening, I used three main research forms:
Client touchpoints
To engage with the client’s management and external stakeholders to inquire about their users' steps once they first connected to the desktop Portal.
Screen recordings
By filtering New Users in Hotjar’s recordings, I observed their behaviours, where they would go and how many times they took to connect or request support.
Informal interviews
A group of new users were selected to investigate their perspectives, gather their suggestions, and acquire insights into possible approaches.
The findings
The Desktop page suffered from an excess of call-to-action elements, an unfriendly layout, and the prompt to install the client was positioned in a less clickable area. The investigation’s metrics here are even more unfavourable than our initial expectations.
02. Ideate
Brainstorming
There were several potential solutions, all focused on the Desktops Page layout alterations.
However, the Desktops Page was the most accessed in the whole portal, and given the sensitive nature of this area, any changes would need to be validated with the team.
Uncovering blockages
Before going into design sketches to address the issue, I talked with the Engineering Team and the Product Owner to establish clear expectations about the timeframes and workload.
The Engineering team said it was feasible to modify the page, but it would need senior developers allocated to the task. Additionally, deep testing would be needed to ensure the page behaves as expected across all scenarios, especially edge cases.
The Product Owner mentioned that improving the connection’s success rate was in line with the company's OKRs. However, due to the startup's fast-paced nature, it would take too long to see results, and we didn't have enough people available for such a big project.
03. New research
The power of team effort
Given the layout would not change, I went back to Hotjar to observe users who spent more than 10 minutes but succeeded eventually.
With a UX Researcher's help, we deeply studied how users navigated, especially when they had issues. This sparked a new idea: What if we focus on different areas?
A Data Analyst gathered and prepared data from multiple sources, finding that 95% of new users explored the portal after failing on their first attempt.
Finally, we talked to clients to better understand their onboarding process. Additionally, we obtained step-by-step documentation from the Customer Success Team outlining the current procedures they were instructing new users to follow.
The new hypothesis
Our objective was to increase the connection rate, and the solution was straightforward: increasing awareness about the imperative need to download the Desktop Client would alleviate user frustration and elevate the success rate.
04. Solution
Opportunities
Welcome Email
The first step in the user’s onboarding process was receiving a Welcome email. This email presented an opportunity to offer straightforward instructions, using numbered steps, to help users download the client and establish a successful connection.
Notifications Page
The numbers revealed that 93% of new users visited the Notifications page at least once before finally succeeding or giving up completely.
Final layout
Users get a Welcome Email with clear instructions for when they land on the Desktop Page.
The user won’t be able to connect without previous installation of the client, so they can click on the install button.
If they go to a different area, once they land on the Notifications Page, they'll see a reminder with instructions later when they explore the tool. This reminder includes a link to the client page, allowing them to download and establish a connection.
Outcome
A significant reduction in connection issues was achieved, with only 20% of new users encountering difficulties connecting to their virtual desktops.
The desktop connection success rate saw a remarkable 80% increase within the first 10 minutes of the user's interaction with the platform.
This improvement represented a 67% increase in overall success rates within two weeks.
05. Next steps
Further improvements
Group notifications by type and provide links to related areas.
Add filters to help users manage notifications, especially when they have many.
Allow users to mark notifications as favourites, highlighting them in a different colour for easy spotting. Users can also filter to see only their favourites.
Lessons learned
During the sprints, several key insights emerged that underscore the significance of effective user experience design:
Communication is the key to success: Talking openly with users, team members, and stakeholders is crucial for success. It helps everyone work together to create a great user experience.
Awareness of limitations and blockers: Identifying and fixing problems early in the design process is essential. This way, we can make things better for users without getting stuck.
The power of data: Data is a valuable tool for making design decisions. By looking at how users behave and what they like, we can design things that work better for them.