Projects

Web App

User experience design

UI design

Saas

Engage Dashboard Redesign: Navigating Constraints to Deliver Innovation

-- A marketing automation web app for businesses

My Role

Lead Designer — I was the lead product designer with a team of 1 PM, 1 Stakeholder and 5 engineers. With this team we were able to create an MVP of the Engage web app.

Team

Donye Collins - Product Designer
Aaron - Product Manager
Ope - Stakeholder/CEO/Co-Founder

Timeline & Status

2022 - 2023

Deliverables

Web app high-fidelity UI design

In the rapidly evolving world of marketing automation, Engage set out with a bold vision: to redefine the ease and efficiency with which businesses communicate with their customers.

The existing platform, while powerful, presented users with a steep learning curve due to its complex navigation and outdated UI.

My mission as the lead product designer was to transform this experience, making Engage not just a tool but a seamless extension of a marketer's thought process.

Which resulted into:

235+

Users growth adoption

80+

Increase in paying users

20%

Conversion rate with new design

👀

Let’s set the stage, from my POV

Core problems and challenges:

1. Usability

Users struggled to navigate through the platform's core functions, such as setting up campaigns and analyzing data.

2. Cluttered

Users felt the platform has a cluttered interface with hidden features, and a lack of guidance for compared to their competitors.

3. Outdated

Users unanimously agreed during feedback rounds that Engage platform looked visually outdated and out of touch with modern SaaS dashboard designs.

⚠️

Hitting a roadblock before take off: Constraints

Ideally, the typical design process thrives on user interaction—understanding their needs, behaviours, and feedback. However, this project's unique constraints required a different approach.

With only a PRD as the compass and no direct user input, the focus shifted to interpreting documented requirements and industry best practices to guide the redesign.

🚀

Kicking things off unconventionally

The journey began with a deep dive into the PRD, market and competitor analysis along with internal testing, as these were instrumental in shaping my understanding of what the users experienced using Engage platform.

To kick it off, one question lingered after understanding what we were solving for:

How might we make marketing automation

fast

,

modern

,

and

relevant

?

Leveraging the PRD as a User Proxy: The PRD became mine and the project's backbone, it offered me insights into the desired functionalities, priorities, and the envisioned user journey. It was essential to extract as much as possible from this document, using it to infer user needs and pain points indirectly.

Learning from the Market and Competitor Analysis: Without direct user access, turning to the market and competitor analysis was crucial. This research helped fill the gaps left by the PRD, providing insights into user expectations, a broader view of the market landscape, trends, and standards in marketing automation platforms.

PRD - Prepared by Aaaron the PM

Rapid Prototyping and Internal Testing: In lieu of user testing, I leaned heavily on rapid prototyping followed by internal testing with the project team. This approach allowed for quick iterations and refinements, ensuring the design aligned as closely as possible with user needs inferred from the PRD and market research.

Market/Competitors Analysis - led by Aaron (PM) & Collins (me)

Internal testing rounds - led by Aaron (PM) & Collins (me)

🧰

The solution

We converted our key problems into opportunities that we could solve for during the redesign.

1. Unusable → Ease of Use

Recognising the importance of quick and easy access to core features, the redesign should emphasize efficiency in other to enable users perform tasks with fewer clicks and less time spent searching.

2. Cluttered → Revelant

Streamline complex processes, improve navigability, and modernize the aesthetic appeal, all while maintaining the platform's robust capabilities.

3. Outdated → Modern

Create a user interface that felt familiar yet fresh, reducing the learning curve while injecting new vitality into the user experience.

🏗️

Building the solution by experimenting

By focusing on user-centric design for a web app dashboard

Kicked off with mood-boarding the visual aesthetics and diving into sketching out the UI with the insights gotten from the PRD and research.

An aesthetically pleasing experience is necessary for our users factoring how poorly designed our competitors products are, factoring this in mind, I needed to gather designs of existing products I find pleasing, subtle and easy to use or navigate.

All good projects need a messy exploratory page

👨💻

Multiple Iterations and refining

❌ Iteration V1: Relaxed, spacious, larger elements

❌ Iteration V2: Brutalist, following the old Engage brand before we rebranded to a more subtle look

Brand perception: A Brutalist design, often associated with a counter-culture vibe, might not align with the professional and innovative image Engage seeks to project. This mismatch could deter potential users who prefer a more polished and friendly interface that suggests reliability and advanced technology.

✅ Iteration V3: Simple, modern, clean and familiar patterned design

By finding a balance between a visually appealing interface and functional depth, the platform catered to both new users seeking ease of use and power users needing advanced features.

🤩

The science behind the solution

Navigating the UI, design decisions taking for Engage

🔎 Testing and Feedback

• 80% found the platform easy to use and less daunting like the competitors

• 20% needed user guides to help them get more familiar with the platform on first time basics in other to reduce learning curve

With this feedback, I worked on improving the corrections and feedback and progressed to handing off the final screens (the pre-launch landing page, web app designs and marketing website) with design specs to the developer for implementation.

📊 Results and what's next?

There was a significant 50% drop in customer support queries related to navigation and usage, highlighting the improved intuitiveness of the platform.
‍
With this good news, this project is by no means finished, the team continued building on the designs I worked on even after I left the team and did more testing with every feature development release.

30%

Reduction in automation setup time

25%

Increase in usage in the broadcast feature

40%

Uptick in average session duration

🎙️ Feedback I got?

Collins has truly outdone himself with the Engage redesign. His blend of creativity and technical skill has not only elevated our platform but also our brand in the digital marketing landscape. We're immensely proud of his work and excited about the future innovations together.