The Challenge
Our customer, a federal conservation agency, approached our design team with a challenge: Increase the adoption of their CRM’s assistance notes functionality. Because usage was low, there was no single source of client notes that employees could rely on for background information in the event of staff turnover or a lawsuit.
My approach to discovery
To understand why adoption of notes was low, I conducted a mixed-methods research study. Guided by existing user feedback, I designed a survey to help identify the most common user pain points related to assistance notes. Along with a colleague, I conducted a set of user interviews to better understand both the context and the severity of these pain points. This project was highly collaborative, with regular input and alignment with our business partners.
Research findings:
The time it takes to navigate to notes, combined with poor application performance, are significant barriers to adoption.
Limited and non-editable attributes hinder the usability of notes.
A mobile tool to capture notes during site visits would increase employee efficiency as well as the quantity and quality of notes taken.
Hear from participants
“It's hard to find a note again. More attributes that we can use to filter (notes) would be great.”
“Being able to input notes while in the field would be incredibly helpful to me.”
Iterative design and usability testing
After presenting these findings, I facilitated a brainwriting workshop with our product team and business partners to generate ideas for addressing user pain points. Once we aligned on a design solution, our development team rebuilt notes as a stand-alone application that could also function as a mobile app.
To identify any basic usability issues, we performed an internal study with eight colleagues. Their overall experience using the new application was positive, but participants struggled with aspects of the search, attach, and export functionality.
With our business partners, PM, and the UX and dev teams, we identified and prioritized design updates to notes based on study results. Once these updates were made, we performed a second round of testing with agency employees. None of the issues uncovered in the internal study were challenges for agency participants in the second round, and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Our solution
Separating notes into a stand-alone application has improved performance.
Direct access to notes vs. going through a case file saves time and avoids access issues with locked files.
Multiple editable attributes improves the usability of notes.
Early positive feedback points to increased adoption of notes.
A mobile tool based on this application is now in development.
Research impact
Our new design for assistance notes was directly informed by our deep understanding of employees’ barriers to adoption. This foundational work, paired with multiple rounds of evaluative research on our new application, led to a successful redesign. User satisfaction with the new notes is now continually assessed through a 2-question in-app survey, and early feedback has been resoundingly positive.