User Experience / Interface Tiger Team

The planning of this project began with findings that sparked our interest in developing a new interface. Even with a visually appealing interface, if the usability and functionality don’t meet expectations, it significantly affects how users interact with the tool. While aesthetics are important, functionality has a greater impact on the user experience. 

The greatest difficulties for users of software arise in scenarios where they believe that to perform a certain action they need to follow a specific path, but they end up discovering that the actual path they needed is different to what they had assumed, and sometimes the correct path is not easily identified. This forces users to memorize the platform instead of following their intuition to work.

All current research focused on the user experience with interfaces seeks to understand how to help people to be more productive, while reducing the cognitive load required by tools to operate and achieve the desired results.

Therefore, it is valuable to present a plan that explores different methodologies centered on the user experience, in order to deliver significant improvements for the entire community.

Is this a separate project from the redesign of the user interface?

Yes. The user interface area is completely different from the user experience area, although they are often considered together. With that consideration, the two areas of focus have been separated into distinct projects. This allows each one to focus on improving their own area without delaying the other’s development due to the iteration and feedback process, which can be – and often is – different for each.

These are the proposed steps to conduct the UX improvement research.

1. Gather initial user feedback - this phase has already started with the sharing of this form
2. Identify key stakeholders
3. Gather feedback from key stakeholder’s clients on user experience 
4. Conduct market research to evaluate commercial marketing automation solutions
5. Audit the entire platform, validating issues raised and searching for other problems as yet unidentified
6. Validate potential changes with community and stakeholders, aligning with resource availability
7. Create issues or pull requests to fix validated issues and improvements
8. Engage with testers and reviewers during the review stage

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.

Here are also some questions for you to ponder:

• What more should we add on the existing user assistance features to ensure the best output for everyone?
• How would you improve the testing of all features?
• Do you feel that any item should receive special consideration and is not on the list about issues validation?
• Do you think the selected list for market research brings the best references? 
• Should we evaluate more or less criteria for the market research? 
• Is there anything to add or remove from any part of the plan?