The goal was to design a more efficient workflow for insight analysts who create daily news briefings for C-suite executives. These curated briefings provided by the insight analysts enable world leaders to shape strategic decisions. Nasa, Harley Davidson and the Gates Foundation are among their many clients. 

My role:

Lead product designer

Designing for:

Insight analysts / Account managers / Email designers

Deliverables:

Problem defining workshop / Detailed journey map / Wireframes / User-interface designs / High-fidelity designs

The ask

Consolidate two analyst platforms by migrating features from one platform to the other. The objective was to make Brandwatch the go-to intelligence tool and to leverage their data coverage. This would also present the opportunity of more efficiency gains for the analysts, as they used four different platforms to send out newsletters. Our goal was to simplify design workflow, and therefore enable the analysts to meet their client’s requirements faster.

The result

Streamlining workflows to save time

The new workflow reduced the time taken by analysts as well as designers to create a briefing. The new user flow ensured that they could do so using just one platform.

A user flow that ties in tech constraints with users' needs

New tech had to be created in order to ensure that analysts could successfully execute the complete end-to-end workflow on the new platform.

Confidence in the migration

Given people's inherent resistance to change, it was vital to build trust with users who were accustomed to the old legacy systems.

Understanding the essential workflows 

Our core users - analysts - have a background in journalism, law or data analytics. Their workday starts at 10 pm as they work through the night to find and summarise the most compelling stories for their clients.

User researchers set out to understand how all levels of analysts were interacting with the current platform.

Where I stepped in was mapping out information architecture within the current platform to understand where the new features for the required workflows might align. This process required multiple rounds of iterations with extensive feedback from engineers, stakeholders and users.

Iterating on research 

Here are a few examples of research insights and how we changed the designs accordingly.


1. Limited workflow

Users faced challenges setting up a new client within the existing workflow, as not all components of their workflow had been integrated into the concept.

Design changes: 

Having a separate dedicated area meant that users could get the level of customisation they needed and could quickly make changes based on clients' requests.

2. Lack of design customisation

For clients who had varied preferences and branding styles for different occasions. For example, a regular briefing would vary visually from their Christmas briefing.


Design changes: 

Added greater customisation to the briefing template design. This was an iterative process with engineers to try to understand what was technically feasible as well.

3. Uncertainty while adding summaries

Users were a little confused when they were creating a summary as they had  to go back and forth between the written summary and other articles.

Design changes: 

They needed a holistic view of all articles to curate summaries and be able to view other relevant articles. At the same time, be able to see the summaries they had already written. 

The learnings

Stakeholder management

Stakeholder management required a balance between respecting legacy user needs and managing expectations of the new platform. 


Team dynamics 

Working with engineers and product people who have not worked closely with design and research before. 


Managing another designer on the project 

I had to understand their skillset quickly and learn how we can both work to our strengths. I did so by having regular and ad hoc 121’s with them.