ABOUT
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Unite.ly is an IT Services platform that allows teams to communicate and collaborate in one easy tool. Unite.ly's main client was Utah Foster Care (UFC), and we built out their custom program called Bridge. The goal of Bridge was to be a place where UFC employees and Foster Parents could communicate, collaborate, and create a supportive community for foster children.
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THE PROBLEM
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We were having some issues with the adoption of the platform with UFC employees. We were receiving feedback that the employees were confused as to how to use the platform, and the purposes of the various sections of the program. As a result, users were defaulting to using old tools, and not utilizing Bridge.
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UFC was concerned about adding foster parents onto the platform with the UFC employee's product adoption being low. As a team, we brainstormed potential solutions to help with product understanding for current users and to help onboard new users on how to use the platform.
We decided that the best solution would be a product tour.
THE PROCESS
1. COMPETITVE ANALYSIS & RESEARCH
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Before getting into any designing, I wanted to do some competitive analysis and research on product tours. While researching I was looking for key elements of what makes a product tour successful. There were various types of tours and different UI patterns. This research helped me narrow down 3 key elements that I believed would help solve the retention problem while also allowing a smooth onboarding process for new users.
2. CHOOSE KEY FEATURES TO HIGHLIGHT
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When it came to deciding what features to highlight on the tour, I met with our product owner and our UFC customer success manager. We decided that we needed to highlight the main navigation and chat.
Our main navigation proved to be a challenge because all the section names and icons were customizable per program. As a result, the tour needed to be responsive to the custom names that were selected for the program, while also having a proper description. Another main area we felt was important to highlight was how to contact our support team. Within the chat, it was vital to highlight how to start a chat, as well as the various features within the chat, including video.
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3. PARTNER WITH DEVELOPMENT
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The next step was to partner with the developer to determine what could and couldn't be done realistically within our time frame, as we only had 3 weeks until foster parents were being onboarded, and to create designs reflecting those decisions. I presented some research-informed sketches of potential solutions to the team. We iterated a few times before landing on the final design that was possible within the scope and timeframe.
Initial Sketches of Product tour
4. DESIGN
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After iterating multiple times based on what was feasible with development, and all prior decisions we had made as a team, I was able to design the finished product tour.
RESULTS
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We were able to ship the product tour before the foster parents were onboarded. I wasn't employed with Unite.ly much longer so I am not sure if there was an improvement in adoption for the current users however, the tour is still in practice today on Unite.ly.