I suggested unique service positioning for Enterprise Messenger based on insights about what end-users in large enterprises want. It convinced product managers and clients not to follow the competitor’s strategy.
Application
Enterprise Groupware - mobile messenger
Enterprise Groupware - mobile messenger
Role
Project Leader
Project Leader
Contribution
Communication with Stakeholders, Leading workshop to set up product positioning and service design strategy, Leading ideation. Developing the primary visual concept
Communication with Stakeholders, Leading workshop to set up product positioning and service design strategy, Leading ideation. Developing the primary visual concept
Key Challenge: Client Not Listening to User's Voice
The client wanted to upgrade Enterprise Messenger, the messenger service that we offer to the client's employees. They wanted to change it to be similar to other leading services in market, and they thought they don't need to listen to the voice of the end-users.
My Solution
🤝Communication with the client
I convinced the client and product managers to listen to the real voice of end-users. To do so, I and designers used quick desk research and user interview report with a few end-users, to show that there was a chance that the client's assumption is not true, and the insights were worth to consider for further design.
💪Proposing the user-centered service positioning
I also suggested the unique positioning that our service should take in consideration of the end-users needs and contexts in large enterprises. I also developed corresponding new concept.
✌️Measuring Success of the Project
As the project remained at the concept proposal stage, we couldn't see the real impact for the end-users. However, from a survey we collected positive responses from the users. After all, the concept brought out empathy from the client, so the client and the team decided to move on to the next stage for developing actual product design.
My Contributions
Critically reflecting on project requirements and communicating with stakeholders
When I first heard that the client and product managers wanted to improve our service by following a competitor (Slack), I raised the question of whether we could meet the real users’ needs by just following others without insights. I also convinced the stakeholders not to follow competitors by explaining how the contexts of our client and target clients of the competitors might be different. In addition, I tried to understand how their requirement came about to gain insights about the client’s hidden real needs.
Offering new unique service positioning
Based on the insights from research on end-users’ needs and pain points, I discovered our type of client has some serious problems that are not matched to our competitors’ services. Therefore, I offered insight about our service’s positioning in the market to distinguish our service in the work messenger market for large enterprises.
Co-designing with stakeholders
To persuade stakeholders to follow our designing service process, I invited them to participate in the process. I had a few product managers join our team for two months to conduct user research and generate ideas together. By doing so I made the stakeholders empathize more with end-users and also recognize the worth of the process and concepts
Highlight 1
Critical reflection on project requirements
The stakeholders, enterprise client and the product owner wanted to redesign the product to be just as like Slack. However, we, the service designers, believed that groupware for a large enterprise required a different service strategy.
Listening to Real Voice of End-User
My team and I visited the client’s company and interviewed the employees about their jobs and roles, tools at work, and their needs and communication difficulties at work. I also invited one of the product managers to our research sessions to listen to users’ voices directly. I believed that it would help product managers to have real empathy for users’ needs and pain points at work.
Below is a summary of what we found from the user research.
Highlight 2
Service Positioning
After the research, we summarized our insights in a service positioning statement . We thought the core values of work messengers can be visualized as a three-pointed diagram: (a) enabling collaboration, (b) unifying communication channels and (c) supporting employees in various situations at work.
"Supporting Employees in Large Enterprise"
We thought our product should focus on supporting employees in daily routines of doing various tasks, like finding information from the right people and accessing work systems, because we found that such support is highly desired by the employees of our client. According to our competitor analysis, it seemed like no competitor had taken the same position.
Highlight 3
Concept Design
Based on our positioning, four main concepts for a new enterprise messenger service were designed, including a new home screen UI and a service connecting different platforms. The following slides explain the concepts in detail.
Delivering outcome
After we suggested the primary concept of a next-generation enterprise messenger, I designed wireframes, a UI flow map and interactive prototypes to deliver ideas more efficiently.
UI Wireframe Flow Map
Primary Visual Concept
Interactive Prototype
I've created an interactive prototype of the concept UI wireframes for Enterprise messenger UX concept. It shows how the messenger home screen works as portal for multiple tools, and how user profiles include hashtags. It also has some features to boost employees productivity, such as a memo tool, easy access to cloud drives, and more. Click on the image below to test the interactive prototype via PC browser. Quality may be reduced on mobile browser.
