Visma Proceedo
Internal pages
Improved flow and increased efficiency for employees.
Visma Proceedo is a B2B company, optimizing procurement processes for businesses. Their solutions cover various aspects of the procurement lifecycle, including requisitioning, supplier management, contract management, purchasing and invoicing.
As a UX Design intern, I was the sole UX designer leading this project and continuously received support from the company's UX–lead, Nina. During ten weeks I initiated a product discovery on the internal employees admin pages to improve the product and experience.
The internal pages are an admin tool utilized by integration specialists and technical customer support users. The tool is used to download transaction files and resolving system errors that occurs to Proceedos customer's. These errors are handled through resending files or messages on the internal pages to address various transaction problems.
The page features a table with multiple rows and columns, crucial for users to locate and manage specific files or messages they need to handle.
Users find the page tiresome and annoying to use due to a long flow and many clicks before they can make a resend of a file or retrieve the file they are handling in a desired format.
To achieve this I’ve followed the double diamond process. I've conducted user interviews to gather insights to the problem, which were then synthesized to define a problem statement to design towards. I’ve continuously validated and tested different concepts to ensure it aligns with the user's needs.
The finished product resulted in an improved flow increasing efficiency and reduced handling times of files and messages helping employees to increase their work efficiency. The new designed concept also helps users to adjust their workflow view according to their needs, which enhances their user experience.
I kicked off a meeting with the product manager to understand how the internal pages support Proceedo as a company. Having some context I conducted 7 user interviews with integration specialists and technical support employees to gather insights about their experiences working with the internal pages, what are their main tasks and goals, what problems exist in their day to day life, and how that affects their workflow.
To identify this I asked them questions below to find patterns and what different needs exist and what is important to them. I then organized my data through affinity mapping in order to find patterns, themes and create categories for different opportunities.
To fully understand the users I visualized their day to day tasks to fully comprehend how the long flow affect the users.
Based on the trends in my affinity map, I’ve noticed how users complain about the file download process. In order to download a file the users has to resend it to their personal email in order to receive it in a desired format. Users also found it tiresome to resend messages through the current flow due to an unnecessary long flow and many clicks. Another finding I did was that some users found it hard to scan through the table when they made a search for a message or a file.
I decided to tackle three pain points that were important and most recurrent to the users. These pain points are opportunities to address.
I created two personas to communicate with the team to show our target users. Based on the opportunities I could now prioritize how to address the issues the employees had.
Based on the opportunities I now had defined some major insight to ideate on to address the problems and set a clear goal for the scope:
Based on my findings I generated ideas through different HMW statements. The ideas were validated with Visma Proceedos UX lead and business analyst.
HMW... make it easier and faster for our employees to handle files and messages?
I reimagined the user journey due to its complexity and users pains regarding the excessive flow. My primary objective was therefore to streamline the process and significantly reduce its length to help users address resends and downloads in a more efficient and faster way. This was done through a side drawer.
I noted that users with different job roles use the table information differently. This led me to explore, how can I create a versatile view that caters to diverse user needs? As a solution, I began exploring the concept of enabling users to be able to filter columns based on their needs.
At this stage I validated my hypothesis and concept with users through a quick guerilla testing. After the test the users found the customization option as a supportive tool for their workflows. The drawer was perceived as a better way to handle a file. Whilst not everything was clear I addressed the pain points going into the Wireframing before testing the concept.
Based on the above problems identified, I worked towards addressing these pains by coming up with potential solutions.
To enhance the overall UI of the product I structured up the search form that is used when searching for a file. I structured the fields by categories, e.g grouping fields when searching for Address, Id's or formats.
After the user enters their search criteria and locate a file they are going to handle, I explored a manage button to show up when hovering on the file, to indicate that an action is available. This was explored since the previous pains during the guerilla testing regarding unclarity in how users were supposed to handle the file and see the drawer.
When a file is being managed the drawer shows up on the right hand side of the users screen.
Customizing fields in the table row was during the guerilla test appreciated but not fully clear how it should work. Therefore I made the button more prominent and a clear view in a drawer showing what fields are showing.
Having gathered both feedback and insights from users this early, I could now refine the sketches and turn them into LO-FI wireframes. I conducted 5 usability tests.
The proposed design brings about significant improvements from the users' perspective, enhancing their work efficiency and productivity. Consequently, this improvement translates into enhanced work environments for users, fostering a hypothetical scenario where it creates value for the organization and promotes its growth. The potential impact of the design is reflected in the increased number of files that can be effectively managed per day, leading to streamlined operations and improved overall performance.
My primary goal at this stage was to validate whether the design solution was well interpreted and if the users would save time and result in a more efficient workflow. The testing was also done to make improvements.
.webp)
Based on feedback there were three areas that were not clear to the users which resulted in a round of iterations which helped me refine the solution. Participants responded well to the concept as well as the new developed flow. However there were some things that was not so clear to the user.
The concept was very well received from the users. After the rounds of usability testing, I was confident that the proposed solutions were going to improve the user experience for the users. To further support this I share some of the customers' own words after testing.
Users found the concept intuitive since they could stay on the same page while managing a file which was perceived as helpful and effective - for download and resending files and messages. Moreover the users found the flow easier due to less steps and clicks where they did not have to go through so many stages and pages before they could finish their resend or download of a file.
Optimized the resend and download process which when developed would reduce handling times by 45% compared to the current flow. Increased versatility and customization through filtering options boosting work efficiency. Redesigned the UI to create cohesiveness resulting in fewer clicks, a more intuitive page and navigation structure.
After my handover to Proceedo they were very thankful for the discovery that I did in this short amount of time. The proposed solution is being refined and tested so that it can be developed for the new Internal pages.
To dig deeper into the outcome of the solution, I would like to measure the actual success of the new designed product. Measuring users time on a task to A) resend a file and B) download a file, compared to its current time.
Having more than 10-weeks, I would definitely do another round of usability testing to gather more insights to validate, iterate and refine the solution. By doing this I could potentially explore more problems with the concept I created.