Service Catalogue Redesign - Large Org
Auditing and Reshaping a new Service, focusing on UX Research
Case Study
In-depth Process
How it all started - Context
IT Department has a large service catalogue, currently set as a static page (pdf). The requirements were to move this into a more dynamic environment which would allow easier manipulation, less information overload for users, and dedicated buttons for actions.
Ideal Case Scenario
A static mockup was provided of the homepage. Next to that, the available tool to recreate it was SharePoint Online, with whom a homepage was built.
The goal was to run a diagnosis on current issues and see how possible it was to get to the mockup within current limitations.
First Impressions
Notable points:
• Branding elements not aligning with previous branding (colors, typograpgy, new logo)
• Better structure was needed to allude hierarchy
• Although many, categories were clearer now than before, with the help of icons
• Some elements were interactive, although they did not appear so at first sight
• Responsiveness is very low
Task Flows
Mapped the user flow for a better overview. Grayed out the out of scope.
Based on this, the focus should lay to improve the Quick Categories section, as it is currently the shortest path towards solving the user's problem.
Navigation assessment
General hierarchy issue - via size, shape, and color
• Largest items are pictures, which are also clickable. Are they the most important? Do users know they can click them?
• There are no apparent Primary / Secondary / Tertiary buttons
• Quick categories get more real estate & a different color due to background - thus they seem more important. Related, the typography for Categories needs to be checked for accessbility
Above the fold
Header at the moment adds more to the information overload, with misplaced search bar and more additional menu buttons.
Users will also "ask" themselves where they are& how can they come back to where they were. What can be removed & added and still stay functional, and what can be moved to provide better finability?
To check:
• Verify breadcrumbs integration
• Add only 1 logo and only 1 home button.
• Verify if search bar can be moved
• Is immersive reader good in terms of accesibility? If not, remove. Same goes for other additional sections such as "Pages" and "Comments"
• Can interaction be added to buttons/sections? i.e. hover action on menu to show subpages
Categories - regrouping
More thought had to be given to the categories and respective subcategories. Card sorting was used to regroup some of the subcategories to make better sense, leading to grouping & removal of existing categories.
Main Page: Categories
Hero section concerns:
• Are the three categories outside part of the hero section? if so, are they less important, or lower priority?
• Lack of equally distributed weight between buttons; see overal hierarchy issue
Green highlighted sections are better organised, showing a clearer & equal division between items
Main Page: Subcategory
Catalogue:
• Photos are small, providing little visual information for users
• The "order" button should be also placed at the right, as present in most common webshop UX flows, and ideally having a button look and feel. Now it is easy to misinterpred, not having any clear signifiers
Other remarks:
• Due to the length of the catalogue section, the service description will be harder to discover by the user. Check if this is intended, and if it would be better placed in a tab
• The service catalogue pdf button receives a lot of real estate. Is that the main action of the page?
• What is the point of "liking" the page, what is the utility for users or consequences for system admins
Main Page: Search Function
Many users - especially those that do not want to "discover" but know already what they are looking for - use the search function. Currently this has a few issues which need to be investigated.
Issues to investigatae:
• Search results do not show items only, as you would expect in a product catalogue. The search is in fact connected to all contents present within the site & subsites
• Filtering also does not help, as it is not an item/category filter, but a filter for all site results
• The exit search and the back item have a low findability
User Research - Overall Process
After carrying out initial assessment, going through an initial round of changes, user interviews were carried out to validate hypothesis as well as discover additional insights
The general steps:
• Develop research questions & objectives with stakeholder
• Identify audience - recruit participants based on needs and behaviour
• Run interview by asking the user questions, have them run a few objective related tasks, and score a system usability scale
• Take notes during interview, splitting findings into what user says-thinks-does, and compile a small findings report
User Research - Running the interview
The interviews were carried out online, with users sharing their screen. The process was moderated, requiring more in-depth feedback from users
The approach:
• Introductions were made, and users were made comfortable reminding that they are not the ones being tested, but the system is
• Next, users were asked if they currently received any requests to order equipment, and if yes, how it usually happened. The purpose was to take notes on the familiarity of the task & respective items, and see if there was any critical step in the process that was missing
• Finally, each user was tasked with 3 different items, from actually ordering an item or just finding some; the process was timed, users were encouraged to think aloud as much as they can, and notes were taken and grouped into the 3 categories (says, thinks, does)
User Research - System Usability Score
In order to get a fuller picture, at the end of the interview the users were asked to give a score from 1-5 to various questions regarding the homepage and the overall ordering process.
Questions were ranging from general usability to feelings of the user at the end of the process, making sure to double some questions as additional check.
User Research - Actions
As always, user research provided valuable insight - this time in terms of what were they expecting, as well as what should be fixed going ahead.
Notable insights:
• "special workplace - is that macbook, iphone?" - more attention was needed for the category redesign
• "I want to use the white buttons and categories workplace and accessories. We use them most" - confirmation that quick action buttons were the right path, attention was needed to choose the most selected ones
• "I don’t know if consulting is used to contact IMS" - Buttons needed revised Text in order to best show where the action would take the user
• The overall impression is of information overload - more structure is needed
• None of the users used the search bar. As expected it has poor findability
Remaining Questions
The real remaining question is how much of this feedback can be actually implemented. In whatever case, the next step would do one more round after changes are implemented, and run a new round of user testing to check for improvements.
Lessons
The most important one is that even though all findings were relevant and good for future development, many changes are impossible to implement due to system limitations.
A more practical audit could have been done if enough time was given to get familiar with the constraints of the system (SharePoint).