Elevate HQ
Client
CreateBytes
Timeline
1 year
Services
Product Design
Overview
ElevateHQ, a leading sales commission software provider, entrusted me with a year-long product design project. This comprehensive undertaking involved the meticulous development and integration of several key modules, each playing a crucial role in the overall platform. Users & Teams, Plan Designer, Dashboard, Quotas, Payouts, Settings, Inquiries, and Support were meticulously introduced one by one, ensuring a cohesive and user-centered experience. The project's core objective was to craft a seamless user experience by meticulously integrating each module into the comprehensive ElevateHQ platform.
Challenge
The project presented a unique challenge: designing a sales commission software that could be built in stages. Here's what I needed to tackle:
Seamless Stitches: As new features were introduced, they had to integrate smoothly with the existing platform. Imagine adding a new room to your house – it shouldn't look like it was built later! The user experience (UX) throughout the entire software had to feel connected.
Easy Navigation Symphony: A well-organized system for finding information (information architecture) and a consistent design style across all features were key. This would make it easy for users to learn the ropes, no matter when they started using ElevateHQ.
Design Consistency: To keep the design looking polished and unified as new features were added, I had to build a design system for product scalibility. This ensured everything worked together in harmony.
Process
To ensure a cohesive and user-centered experience throughout ElevateHQ's modular releases, I implemented a streamlined product design process for each new feature:
User Research & Understanding: The process began with understanding user needs and workflows. This involved user research techniques to gather insights on how sales teams manage commissions and what functionalities would be most valuable.
Information Architecture & Navigation: Based on user research, a clear information architecture was established for each module. This defined the organization of features and content, ensuring users could easily find the information they needed.
Wireframing & Prototyping: Low-fidelity wireframes were then created to visualize the layout and user flow for each module. These wireframes were iteratively refined and transformed into interactive prototypes for user testing and feedback.
User Testing & Iteration: User testing played a crucial role. By testing prototypes with target users, usability issues were identified and addressed. This iterative process ensured each module offered a smooth and intuitive user experience.
Design System Integration: Each new feature's design adhered to the established design system. This ensured visual consistency across the entire platform, maintaining a familiar and user-friendly experience for ElevateHQ users.
Ideation
UX Design all about teamwork! For each new feature, like Users & Teams or Payouts, I'd brainstorm with stakeholders – to understand their vision and goals. Then came the user focus: interviews and feedback helped me design features that fit into real-world sales team workflows.
Here's where things got creative. I sketched wireframes, basically like itrations/ solutions, to show how users would navigate and interact with the features. These wireframes were constantly being tweaked based on user feedback and discussions with developers. We even did card sorting exercises, where users categorize information, to figure out the most user-friendly way to organize everything within each feature. Through this collaborative process, each part of ElevateHQ transformed into a user-friendly and efficient experience, ready to slot perfectly into the bigger sales commission platform.
Outcome
ElevateHQ's year-long journey was a triumph of user-centered design. By rolling out features like Users & Teams and Payouts one by one, we ensured a smooth learning curve for US-based sales teams. The focus on user research throughout the design process resulted in a platform that's not only powerful but also incredibly easy to use. A consistent design language, maintained through a central design system, ensured a unified experience across all features, regardless of rollout date. This user-centric approach not only satisfied our client but also resonated with the US market, leading to a positive response and a surge in new users onboarding the ElevateHQ platform.
Key Takeaways
As a UX/UI generalist on this year-long project, I wore multiple hats, tackling tasks across the design spectrum. This holistic approach yielded impactful results:
Business Success: Prioritizing user needs through research and testing led to a 25% increase in user satisfaction with the platform, as measured by internal surveys. This user-centric approach directly translated to business success, with ElevateHQ consistently garnering badges like "Best Product of the Day" and "Top Performer - Multiple Seasons" on G2, a leading software review platform.
Modular Design: The modular rollout strategy, planned and designed, ensured a smooth onboarding experience for new users, with a 10% reduction in support tickets related to platform navigation.
Design System: Developing and implementing a robust design system streamlined the design and development process, leading to design team efficiency. This system also ensured a consistent and unified user experience across the platform.
ElevateHQ was a pivotal project in my career, solidifying the importance of user-centered design in driving product success and user adoption within the competitive SaaS market. It empowered me to hone my skills as a design generalist and the impact of a holistic design approach on user experience and business growth.
