ABOUT THE PROJECT
A social platform that supports all the collaboration needs that are needed in an application, like Sales Automation & GCS. Few of the related capabilities that includes: Being able to pool and present data from more than one specific source (support for multiple data sources) to support single view of various events/discussions happening in the application. Ability to even filter the views based on their need in run-time. Being able to support collaboration using ‘GROUPs’ in any application Like any social platform, support for having the capabilities like ‘BOOKMARK’ & ‘LIKE’ Users to get real-time intimation when there are new posts in the same context that he/she is already viewing.
THE CHALLENGE
- Not a one-stop-shop for what’s going on @ work
- Separate URLs / Apps / Systems, etc.
- Tribal knowledge of where to do what
- No sharing of information/collaboration/linkage across apps
MY ROLE
I led the definition and the implementation of the product strategy and design
I was responsible for building the Pega Social from the ground up – from research to product strategy and design.
THE PROCESS
- Audited existing features to understand the functionality and to identify which features need design thinking
- Conducted competitor analysis to analyze best practices
- Ran a card sort exercise to improve information architecture in navigation
- Developed proto-personas to understand and empathize with users
- Surveyed users to understand what was working and what wasn’t
- Led workshops to brainstorm and ideate
- Wireframed and prototyped solutions using whiteboards, Sketch.
- Collected feedback and tested hypotheses with internal stakeholders and external users
- Developed a cohesive design solutions
- Documented styles and components
Conducted an analysis of competitors for comparison and assessment
Community Homepage
Salesforce.com
Member Profile (public)
Salesforce.com
Member Profile (public)
LinkedIn.com
Forum (Q&A Style)
StackExchange.com
Forum (Discussion Style)
TeamTreehouse.com
Member Groups
IBM
Conducted whiteboard discussions with stakeholders.
Research & Inspiration: Different types of interfaces used in social collaboration platforms
Card style interface
Fluid interface with left nav
Clean & minimal interface
Information over crowded
Early design concepts:
Advantage of this approach
- Ideal for aggregated content (a single website featuring content from multiple external sites)
- Easy to scan through the information
- Shareable — design cards are like the digital equivalent of a business card
- Versatile — cards can be adapted to almost any style, from minimalist to elaborate
- Can be manipulated in many different ways, allowing for person- al creativity
Problems with this approach
- Less information is shown making the user scroll more
- Suites for image based content, may not be suitable for enterprise communications
- A bit played out, as lot of sites mimicking Pinterest or Facebook interface
- Risk of producing a cluttered feel
Throughout the design process, i have explored and iterated on various design concepts to refine and improve the final product.
DELIVERABLES
Use case’s, Design pattern, wireframe, Usability testing metrics
THE FINAL OUTCOME
Pega Pulse
- Richer collaboration capabilities in Pulse so that it is easier to use it to share and post new feeds to other users.
- Introduced robust filters to filter feed of choice
- Ability to follow users
- Real-time updates to Pulse Feed viewers when there are new posts available in that context!
- New features, like, bookmark and tag posts are introduced
- Present data from more than one specific source to support a single view of various events-discussions happening in the application.
Spaces and Curated Content
- Create an ad-hoc space/group around a particular topic and collaborate with the members of that Group.
- Admin to add/delete users to the Group
- Create a PIN referring to Cases, Reports, Documents, Pulse posts, etc
Real-time collaboration on Documents
- Ability create and view the new document in the application
- Sharing a Document across multiple contexts