To comply with my confidentiality agreement I have omitted and appropriated confidential information. The information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Chatnels Software. The designs are a reinterpretation of the original.
Chatnels is an all-in-one communication platform for businesses to manage client service workflows. Through the combination of a chatbot, shared inbox, and chat transfers, it allows for collaboration within teams to handle complex inquiries, ensuring clients are routed to the right person with the right information at the right time.
At the time of the project, the Chatnels team wanted to expand their team's talent. I was fortunate to join the team during its early development stage for this project.
UX Consultant, UI Designer
Project Manager (CEO), Development Team
Chatnels Software was a startup company with a small Scrum team consisting of a product owner, a Scrum master, and developers when their platform, Chatnels, underwent a major overhaul for its next iteration. At the time, their team lacked a UX/UI designer. The CEO reached out directly to me to fill the role as a freelancer. I worked collaboratively with the team to provide all the related deliverables for the project.
Chatnels first started as a digitalized message board aiming to enhance the traditional bulletin boards commonly used in community centers and classrooms. The product owner, who is the stakeholder in this case, wanted to reposition the platform specifically for business use to ensure its viability. I was recruited to join the team as the UX/UI Designer for this specific reason.
The team conducted user research ahead of time related to communication challenges in businesses. Upon direct conversations with business owners and organizations of all sizes, we also discovered that businesses are facing challenges in reaching customers, which have become increasingly difficult in recent years. In fact, upon closer examination, we observed similar disconnection among cross-functional teams within organizations' internal systems.
Having to reposition the platform meant starting everything from scratch. Although I wasn't deeply involved in every process, I witnessed the Chatnels team at various stages, from conducting user research to developing the platform. One approach that I found extremely useful at the beginning was using the Five W's and One H method to reidentify user needs and wants. Through this exercise, all team members gained a clear understanding of what the new platform should accomplish.
The platform will resolve communication challenges for businesses and enhance the connection among people.
Businesses that are looking to build, scale, and streamline communication both externally and internally.
These users need an effective method to streamline communication workflows among individuals, including clients and teams. It is crucial to remove barriers that impede communication and reconnect information before it eventually results in the loss of crucial communication. Consequently, it is essential to prevent potential loss of clients and business in the long run.
As part of the team, I brainstormed to identify the end users' goals. What are they trying to achieve when using our platform? After the session, we decided on four main goals: connecting, routing, automating, and informing.
Invite members to join conversations and conference outbound participants into the workflow.
Direct inbound requests to the right people in an organization.
Optimizing work time without sacrificing work quality by automating static conversation and focus on engaging in more complex, meaningful conversations.
Provide users with timely information that are relevant and valuable to them.
Based on the end goals, we outlined key features like chat management for connecting and routing participants, Chatbot Assistant for task automation, and reports and analytics for keeping teams informed.
Manage direct and group conversations to allow team collaboration for complex inquiries.
Build multiple bots to provide users with the information they need, when they need it.
Engage users with timely information and enable users to interact with like-minded individuals to create a community.
Provide organizations with timely information that are relevant and valuable to them.
Manage direct and group conversations to allow team collaboration for complex inquiries.
Avoid inbox confusion and collision by monitoring chat statuses to prioritize urgent interactions
Configure bot personality customized to fit organization’s brand and provide users with the information they need, when they need it.
Provide users with timely information that are relevant and valuable to them.
Provide organizations with timely information that are relevant and valuable to them.
As the new platform was significantly different from the old one, I suggested designing it from scratch instead of reusing the old platform. However, as a freelancer with limited time and understanding of the old platform, I couldn't provide sufficient reasoning and data to support my proposal. The team considered my suggestions but ultimately decided to reuse the old platform, trimming irrelevant features. I trust my team's expertise and respect their decision.
Chatnels must be easy to integrate with any enterprise platforms. Simple integrations should be automated while customer support could provide assistance for more difficult deployments.
Chatnels must be designed with enterprise class security and data privacy for organizations to use with confidence without concerns.
Enterprise often needs customization to adopt a new technology, hence a diverse team of customer support from the Chatnels team was essential to provide specialized services cater to different organizations.
I collaborated with the developers to restructure Chatnels into logical flows based on predefined user goals. Utilizing user flows in the design process, I outlined the information presented to users at the right time, enabling them to complete tasks efficiently. Here's an example of a user utilizing the automated chatbot to perform a predefined task.
I then created wireframes and incorporated them into a series of user flows. Then turning the wireframes into interactive prototypes to initiate usability testing as soon as possible.
Usability testing was conducted in short 1-week intervals, typically every 2-3 sprint cycles. As a freelance UX/UI Designer with limited time, my main responsibility was to actively participate in testing, analyze the results, and collaborate with the team to make informed decisions for further iterations. The team handled the preparation and recruitment process.
Through usability testing, I found that certain tasks worked better with specific methods. For instance, extensive information collection was more effective with a form, while an automated bot excelled at gathering information incrementally. I recommended utilizing each method to its advantage in relevant scenarios.
Reflecting on the project, if I had been more involved as a full-time designer from the beginning, I would have recommended more frequent usability testing, ideally once per sprint cycle. The current frequency of once every 2-3 cycles often leads to delays in implementing necessary improvements due to backlog planning and iteration delays.
In fact, given the opportunity, I would adopt a parallel track approach where UX work, including usability testing, is continuously carried out one step ahead of the implementation work. This way, by the time the team begins developing a feature, the initial user experience work on it would already be completed and ready for the next iteration.
After a few iterations, I upgraded the mockups to mid-high fidelity and work closely with developers to implement them into a working prototype, bringing the prototype closer to the final product for further testing.
At this point, each sprint cycle was relatively the same, with the product backlog being cleared and features implemented into the platform one by one in each sprint cycle.
As the early beta phase of the project concluded, the Chatnels team expanded by recruiting additional members, including a full-time UX/UI Designer, to support the project's ongoing scalability. Consequently, I stepped down from my freelance position after successfully completing the transition and task delegation. From its initial incarnation as a digitalized messaging board, the team has consistently iterated on the platform, evolving it into today's all-in-one communication platform to meet ever-changing standards. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the talented team at Chatnels and eagerly anticipate discovering new enhancements with each iteration.