Discover & Define

The People app started by understanding the user's problems and needs when looking up people from a business context. With several Design Thinking workshops, we were able to define the "user outcomes" and "user stories" that drove the app's user experience.

User Pain Points

"Too much under the people menu and hard to know where to go."

"Not fast enough."

"Need improvement of search."

"Tags are too manual. Use it once and forget about it."

"UX is not intuitive."

"Great content is often hidden." (eg. Things in Common)

"Not enough customization."

Need Statements

Created ad-lib need statements to define the needs for the app.

User Outcomes

The following outcomes were prioritized and defined for the first release of the People app:

• Directory/ Search: A user can quickly find the person they want.

• Your Profile: A user can quickly get oriented to who a person is and find the content they care about.

• My Profile: A user can enhance their own profile, allowing them to curate their online identity.

• Create Groups: A user can create meaningful groups and easily access it anywhere in the app.

• Business Card: A user can find out about a person anywhere and find the info they need at their finger tips.

• Settings: An admin can install and enable extensions to meet a company's needs.

Ideate & Design

Ideation

When we started designing for the people app, we assumed people would benefit from seeing slightly different profile layouts based on their relationships. For example, when you didn't know someone, we wanted to show a large header showcasing their photo and "About" information. Conversely, if you knew somebody, we wanted to reduce the header and elevate the shared content.

After talking to our sponsor users, although they appreciated the new concept, they were concerned about the consistency in layout and content surfaced. We quickly changed course, iterated on our designs to come up with a structure that would be an optimal experience for all relationships types.

We took a mobile first approach and defined the structure of the app and applied it across all platforms to create a seamless and holistic experience. I created the mobile wireframes for phone and tablet.

User Research

User research played a critical role in defining the direction of the People App. Based on sponsor focus groups, we were able to get valuable feedback and continuously iterate and improve on our designs.

• Users loved the dynamic header and sticky navigation

• Users appreciated the simplified layout and organization of content

• Users wanted to see the “relationships” section higher up in the structure

• Users found the content order for “relationships” confusing

• Users were confused about the dynamic headers based on relationship

In addition to our focus group sessions, we had bi-weekly playbacks to share our designs to a broader group of designers, developers, offering managers and stakeholders to get valuable input as well.

Design System

As a mobile expert, I had the opportunity to be actively involved in building ICS’s Design Language System and we used this as a basis for defining our UI styles for the People app. The details of the creation of the ICS Design Language System is documented here.

Final Designs