User Experience / Interface Tiger Team

Gathering initial user feedback

In October 2023, user feedback began to be collected through a form made available on the main channels where community activity is prominent. Various comments received through this form guided ideas for improvements.

This means that for nearly half a year, everyone in the community has been free to suggest improvements to the platform’s usability, regardless of the method or timing of implementation. 

Many users were present and made sure to help in this collection of ideas, just as many users/companies/stakeholders chose to refrain from filling out this form.

The form can be accessed through the link https://forms.gle/NT7UPQVU2MLYcL8w5 and your submissions are welcomed at any time.

Among the responses, comments such as these were receive:

Clearer paths to get the job done. It's often very confusing for customers to work in it.

Examples:

Reports: Very complicated to set up with all the different choices and factors. Other softwares have done-for-you-reports such as "Opening rate", "Click rate" etc. And those reports are also easier to understand than Mautic's reports once you've made them.

Set up a form: Why are there two forms? Which one should I choose?

Scheduling an email: What is published/unpublished? Why do I need to set an unpublished date for segment emails (not a common way to send out emails, even though the function is useful once the customer understands it). Why is "scheduling" called "publishing" for segment emails?

Step away from the generic bootstrap UI and make it more Mautic branded. Or at least more unique for Mautic.

Light grays & subtle shadows

More contrast: replace the mid gray to a darker gray

Differentiate in CTA's: have primary, secondary and tertiary CTA's styled differently

Imagery: replace the placeholder images by more modern ones

Subtle animations: add subtle, meaningful micro animations on user interaction (clicks, mouse-overs, ...)

Uniqueness: add some kind of unique & subtle pattern in the background or something. Just something to make it "Mautic" and unique. Example: https://dribbble.com/shots/23021841-Contact-Us-Card

Maybe subtle gradients to modernize it?

...

I would like to have the option of configuring the Cronjobs in the frontend without the need to have a developer/ops person to set them up.

- The email and page builder should be better

- the left navigation should be more cool

- the listing pages should be more appealing

More intuitive (links in small, grey typeface that you don’t know are links is one example)

I like it generally, but it could be a bit faster. Maybe make it a bit more modern, without messing with the clean look.

The help texts and translations need a revamp for more clarity.

Campaign builder should have a button to align the campaign items automatically.

A more modern look. The ability to group items in folders. Re-order the side menu and hide side menu items.

Complexity reduction: Make it more similar to other marketing software

- "Scheduling an email is called "scheduling" and not "publishing" and it's not the same thing as "keep sending the email to a segment until a certain date"

- Have one form type and one email type (highly confusing)

- Make it clear how automations based on segment works, that the contacts will only go through once and setting that they can go through again will *not* actually do that unless they are removed from the workflow.

Modern design

Make the actions stand out

Give the right feedback. Not just visually. Make it clear what is possible, what isn't, what is going wrong, what to do to make it work, ...

Hide what isn't working perfectly. A marketeer expects everything available to work as intended. Better have less functionality than lots buggy stuff.

Tooltips. Explain more & better how it works.

Smoother workflows, ensuring that the design in the email builder looks that way in the final mail when it is received.

The UX and UI should be renewed once every two years.

Get professional UX designers involved for starters

Gathering feedback from stakeholder’s clients

Our stakeholders have an extensive client base and are a valuable source of feedback. This feedback can come from marketing professionals from various companies who use the platform daily and experience the challenges created by a scenario where user experience needs are overlooked.

The team gathered to understand the main problems that clients face today and initially think about how we could address them in a way that benefits the entire community. After all, it is part of the company’s values to give back to the open-source world, considering how much the project empowers our stakeholders and its clients.

This allowed us to gather valuable data for future implementation considerations. 

Market research

Market research serves to evaluate other tools on the market and draw up a profile about each one.

The following usage scenarios and criteria are considered:

Installation Process

• How simple is the installation process?
• How intuitive is the installation interface?
• What level of technical knowledge is required for installation?
• Are there guides available to assist with the installation?
• What kind of support is provided during the installation process?

Dashboard

• What information is displayed?
• What metrics and reports are available?
• How customizable is the dashboard?
• How intuitive is the dashboard’s design?
• How easy is it to access the dashboard?

Navigation

• How aesthetically pleasing is the navigation interface?
• How usable is the navigation system?
• How easy is it to access functionalities through the navigation?

Marketplace

• What variety of additional resources are available in the marketplace?
• How easy is it to install these additional resources?
• How well do these resources integrate with the platform?

User Profile

• What settings are available in the user profile?
• How easy is it to edit the user profile?
• What security and privacy options are available for the user profile?

General Pages

• Is there page customization for managing each type of resource?
  Is there the possibility for individual customization for each type of resource?

For this purpose, we think about analyzing the following tools:

1. Hubspot
2. Mailchimp
3. Sender
4. Sendinblue
5. RD Station

We also consider asking our stakeholders for primary competitors and increase this list.

Checking the entire platform, searching for problems

The process begins with an heuristic evaluation, primarily conducted by community UX designers, to establish a solid foundation for all proposed functionalities. This initial phase benefits from a thorough review of existing help items, laying the groundwork for enhancements.

These are all the proposed activities:

• Design intuition test
• Review of existing user assistance features
• Test all current features

We’ll explain them all below.

Design intuition test

The test is a method that assesses the intuition of user experience (UX) professionals (or even the public) about where they, as users, would expect to find specific features within an application. This is where things that aren’t working as expected might be discovered, or where users are forced to find strange workarounds to do what needs to be accomplished.

The test involves selecting critical tasks for the user experience and developing a questionnaire that asks them to indicate where they, putting themselves in the users’ shoes, believe would be the most obvious place to find the feature in question. The answers should be short and simple, reflecting the intuitive reasoning behind the choices. 

Analyzing these responses allows us to evaluate if the current design of the application aligns with where users would intuitively look for the features, making it easier to adjust and make the interface more intuitive and in line with user expectations.

Example: 

Where do you believe the option to change your password would be located? 

A: User profile

The results would be presented in a table format where each row represents an iteration, with a column indicating whether the test was successful or if there were opportunities for improvement and the suggestions.

Then, potential solutions can be thought of.

Review of existing user assistance features

The review of existing assistance features items involves evaluating how captions for editing fields are presented, whether tooltips are used, the clarity of tooltip text, and if there are alerts in the interface, among other elements. The analysis is conducted to ensure that the solutions are clear and useful.

This is crucial for users’ self-sufficiency when navigating the platform.

We initially thought about this process: 

1. Start a tour of the platform focusing on help elements. 
2. For tooltips and captions:
3. Assess the clarity of the text and ease of access.
4. Check if the content is informative and concise. 
5. For fixed messages:
6. Confirm if the messages are visible and relevant to the user’s action.
7. Ensure the text guides the user to the next logical step. 
8. For placeholders:
9. Verify if they provide a clear example of what should be entered.
10. Make sure they disappear after typing begins. 
11. For dropdown items:
12. Check if the labels reflect all accessible functionalities.
13. Ensure the organization of items is logical and intuitive. 
14. For tab titles and help links:
15. Ensure the titles are descriptive and match the tab content.
16. Check if help links are up-to-date and lead to the correct information. 
17. Make sure all help elements meet accessibility standards to ensure they are useful for all users. 
18. Record any issues found and suggest specific improvements.
19. Develop an action plan based on findings to optimize the interface

You might be asking what would be the benefits:

• Less support needed for employees and clients
• It becomes easier to know Mautic for the first time and getting used to work with it
• People can do their work better and faster
• It shows that we care about marketing professionals

Testing all features

A key part of conducting user experience research is carrying out a test of all the platform’s features.

The test of all features involves accessing the platform and reviewing each page by clicking on everything possible to test different functions. For example, opening a dropdown with three options and clicking on each to see what happens, where it leads, and what the next steps are within each of the links, etc. 

This will help ensure that all elements work as expected before collecting user feedback about the changes. 

Why this one?

• Proposals that are well-researched and contextually relevant can be delivered
• It’s a proactive approach to find problems and raise an issue
• Bugs tend to be found
• In finding the issue, often it’s possible to suggest how to resolve it by considering how you’d have expected to do that task or action

Hearing a better way to handle this task or to provide a better overview of its results would be appreciated. 

How to get involved?

We are committed to transparency and collaboration in our project. Therefore, we invite everyone to contribute their ideas and feedback on the proposed plan. Community participation is crucial for us, and together, we can ensure that the final outcome is practical, effective, and well-received by all.

Please provide your insights into this plan in the comments, any suggestions you have for improvements or changes, or even concerns.