MEREKA CONNECT
UX Strategy
Product Design
Enhancing a service management dashboard for seamless experience of creative businesses
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
Responsive Web
Mereka Connect creates opportunities for creative businesses (Hubs) to manage their resources such as Experiences and Spaces while engaging with their local community, through a single B2C platform.
PROBLEM
As the product entered the market, Hubs persistently required a guided onboarding process from the Growth & Community team and additional support in search of relevant tools on their dashboards.
This user experience and navigation issue affected:
The Hub's experience to independently onboard and list their services on Mereka Connect
Team's capacity to manage between product, community outreach and customer service.
MY ROLE
Taking on a collaborative approach, I explored the problem together with the growth team to identify UX issues when using the product and define the UX strategy to align on the product and business goals that the company hopes to achieve.
This helped me in conducting an end-to-end design process to redesign the onboarding and Hub Dashboard experience for Hubs to better interact and engage on Mereka Connect.
OUTCOME
These designs were launched in 2022, which have received positive feedback from creative businesses and gained an increase of independent onboarding and service listings on same month. The redesign played a big role in scaling the product and within 2 years, Mereka Connect has onboarded 200+ Hubs across 10 countries and have about 500+ services listed, receiving bookings of up to 800+ on the platform.
Context: Redesigning the Hub experience
As the system was made of multiple parts that needed overhauling, I would like to focus on my role to redesign the onboarding process and the dashboard which contributed to a better Hub Dashboard experience, product scalability and achievement of business goals.
Problem exploration & research approach
Since multiple UX issues were occurring at the same time, it was overwhelming at first to conduct user research when the team had no capacity or resources to do so. So, I decided to collaborate with the Growth & Community team to funnel the problem space and identify emergent themes by:
Observing the guided onboarding and community support sessions.
Conducting usability testing with internal and external team members of Mereka Connect who will use the product as customers.
Cross-analysing persistent issues that occurs during guided onboarding and support tickets submitted by customers to distinguish between UX issues and developmental bugs.
Engaging with creative businesses during networking and community events to recognise their needs and pain points as insights to bring a competitive edge for the product.
Collaborating with the Growth & Community team offered detailed perspectives on the needs, preferences and pain points of the customers while bringing in knowledge of business goals.
Compilation of images showcasing collaborating efforts with the Growth & Community team
Research insights
After analysing the insights derived from different methods, I translated the findings into 3 main key points that needed to be prioritised and solved in order to improve the Hubs' experiences:
"Where can I access my dashboard?"
Too many of the users have trouble signing up as a Hub which leads to challenges in navigating to their dashboard.
When the process is inaccessible, this could deter Hubs from using the product.
“I need to view more listings information”
While we have a table detailing the listings of the services, the information does not meet the needs and requirement of the Hubs as they require more data to manage their services.
“How can I find booking details?"
If the Hubs could not find information on their upcoming bookings, this means they might miss out on the events they are meant to host which might drive away users, which will stunt the product growth and scalability.
The Strategy
Based on the insights, I conducted a workshop with the Growth & Community team as well as the Product team separately to define UX strategy that align with the business goals while prioritising features that solve key user pain points when using the Hub Dashboard.
This guided me to map out the actions and features that could improve the user experience according to user needs, our technical capabilities and business goals. The diagram below is recreated of the originial affinity diagram to only show features that are live on the platform.
A recreation of an affinity diagram that only showcases released and live features on Mereka Connect
I decided that to improve the user experience and allow the product for scalability, the dashboard experience needs to be redesigned, so that Hubs can easily and independently onboard and access their service and booking management tools.
Redesigning a dashboard is no easy feat, the more we evaluate the designs, the more we find gaps in flows and processes, the more details were required to create a seamless dashboard experience.
Instead of creating low-fidelity wireframes, I crafted user flows and user stories that were reiterated until it captures all processes and edge-cases required for the dashboard experience.
A recreation of the user flows as representation of the efforts
Testing & Reiteration
From there, we designed completed wireframes and I conducted moderated usability testings company-wide and with selected Hubs to ensure that the processes were easy, clear and seamless.
Working in a startup means working in a fast environment to launch features to receive quick results and feedback. Based on the feature prioritizations that have been created in collaboration with the team, we rolled out features according to priorities that allow me to gain real-life feedback to make continuous impactful iterations that meet business goals and user needs.
Documentation & Handoff
As this project was a large-scale effort across several teams, I started documentation initiatives for references of all team members (especially developers) to better understand and review the designs.
Documentation of designs for review, reference and handoff (Blurred to protect privacy of the company)
Final designs: Hub Onboarding
Clear distinction between user profiles
Previously, Hubs had to sign up as a user before they can create a Hub profile. Now, they can immediately sign up as a Hub without the hassle of additional steps, which increase independent onboarding. This also improved efficiency for the Growth & Community team to focus on outreach rather than supported onboarding.
Efficient and informative onboarding process
The onboarding process is important for Hubs to create a profile for users to find more information related to their services. The process was crafted to be more user-friendly and efficient based on the data and insights collected to improve their experiences.
Hub Dashboard - Just a click away
A clear link for Hubs to navigate to their Hub Dashboard, which was previously hidden in the user menu dropdown reduced the need for community support, improving internal workflow and processes.
User-friendly and scalable data system
The complex data system of the Hub Dashboard including multiple services and features were reorganised into a user-friendly interface that could support the growth and scalability of the system. What was once a single page has expanded into a whole ecosystem that was better structured to ensure clear navigation, actions and interactions.
Since the Hub Dashboard is a management tool for booking and services, the system was organised to ensure clear navigation and interactions based on user research and competitive analysis.
Key Results
Within the same month of publishing these changes to Mereka Connect, the platform receive an increase of independent user onboarding while also increasing service listings.
We have received compliments on how the designs were "modern" and "looks user-friendly"
There was a decrease in the need for community support as customers could easily find links, shifting the Growth & Community focus for outreach and community events
The dashboard was designed and documented in a way that it could support any changes (components, features, etc) to allow for reiteration & scalability.
Since the launch, the platform has gained 200+ new Hubs across 10 countries and have about 500+ services listed, receiving bookings of up to 800+ on the platform over a period of 2 years.
My food for thought
This project pushed me to grow exponentially, teaching me new processes and tools to design dashboards.
Design is an ongoing iterative process
I have learnt the importance of evaluating feedback and finding a gap that needs to be addressed rather than designing for every requirement. By becoming an expert in understanding the problems, I can be an expert in designing an innovative solution that would fulfil the most unexpected needs.
Collaboration as an important tool
The outcome of collaboration is more impactful when I align user needs, business goals and technical capabilities together. By knowing the different needs, I was also able to better present my design solutions according to each team’s perspectives.
Application of system thinking
This project required a critical approach to create a complex system of data and interactions. I learned to look beyond designing the interface but also at how different components and features are connected together to create value and impact.