VIATLAS
USER RESEARCH & TESTING
CLIENT: Bixal Solutions
ROLE: UX Designer and Researcher
TIMELINE: 4 months
TOOLS: Sketch, Invision, Miro, Google Forms, Optimal Workshop, Flowmapp.
SKILLS: User Interviews, Usability testing, Wireframing, Prototyping, Heuristic Evaluations, Research Synthesis.
Context
The Problem
Bixal is a rapidly growing small business in the government consulting space. In a span of two years, they went from ~70 employees to ~150 which made it much more difficult to conduct annual performance reviews.
Goals & Objectives
ViAtlas is an internal Human Resources software developed by Bixal to carry out our employee performance evaluation called the Performance Enrichment Process (PEP). I was brought on to help redesign an existing site in preparation for future performance reviews.
Outcomes
In December 2020, we officially launched our application and collected Team Member and Project Manager evaluations for Bixal's 150+ employees. We also recorded an 86% increase in self-reported satisfaction scores during our Post-PEP survey.
Discovery and Wireframing
Interviews, Personas, Card Sorting
We interviewed 6 Project Managers and 4 Team Members to ask about their experiences, expectations, and concerns about evaluations as a whole. Each group had unique needs, goals, pain points, and priorities but a common thread between them all was a desire for accurate, meaningful feedback that came from people they worked closely with.
Wireframing and Usability Testing
I started the entire redesign process by first capturing screenshots of the current product and making my own notes and annotations of what was going well, what was confusing, and what I wanted to do further research on. When we decided on which user stories we needed to prioritize first, I set up biweekly Dev/Design syncs to show developers my progress and get feedback early and often.
Wireframe of assigning evaluations from a Project Manager's perspective
Pivot and Launch
Heuristic Evaluation, UI Changes, Testing, and FAQ Page
In October, we learned that our deadline was pushed up to early December. As a result, we needed to abandon new feature ideas and focus our efforts on what was achievable within our timeframe.
Project goals and objectives started in the "Major Projects" category and then needed to shift into the "Quick Wins" in order to have enough time for QA testing and moving ViAtlas from a staging site to a production site.
Small (but mighty) UI Changes
QA Testing
After making changes to the UI, we were ready for some intensive testing. I led the QA testing efforts and while it wasn't a perfectly smooth process, at the end of the day we were able to catch many errors and launch the PEP on time.
ViAtlas FAQ Page
*I am not able to show a demo of the final site due to confidentiality reasons.
Reception, Feedback, & Next Steps
Overall, the PEP was a success!
At the end of the day, people were able to successfully log-in and take their assessments. There were many things we wished we had time to fix or change as a product team but for most of our users, this was thankfully a simple and straightforward process.
To close out the PEP, I collected feedback in the form of a survey and also did a workshop with our People & Culture department to identify their key objectives for the next PEP.
