Proactive UX Proposal
IMDbPro had been in maintenance mode for many years. Business leaders identified a potential way to reach a greater percentage the TAM (total addressable market) by offering a number of new features and improvements.
Through user research, we had learned that existing features and content was not discoverable. They were buried too deep into the site. New projects were at risk of being lost as the navigation bar did not have room for more options.
I identified the navigation structure as a major deficiency. Beyond that, the information architecture of the site was limiting our product.
Looking Around Corners
I knew a project proposal from UX would face many obstacles.
- It's difficult to get leadership excited about Information architecture. Particularly if they don't know what it is.
- The roadmap was already full for the next two years.
- Changing all pages would require significant dev work.
- Users were already used to the existing structure.
- Users did not identify the nav as an issue.
To mitigate these issues, I needed to understand where the push back came from.
- What are the risks they see and how do we address it?
- How are team members being measured? Can this project help them beat expectations?
Mitigation Plan
In order to be able to execute the project, good UX deliverables would not be sufficient. We would need to address concerns and build confidence that we are doing the right thing.
Internal Team
To build trust and support from product management, development and marketing, I needed to:
- Bring them into the project early
- Build shared ownership
- Make sure they feel heard
- Identify additional opportunities that will increase their success metrics
Project Execution
Without a clear plan of attack, the project would be at risk of getting backlogged. I took it upon myself to propose a plan that would get ahead of some of the barriers we would be facing.
- Break down the project into smaller pieces
- Gain a deep understanding for the various technologies the site has been built with
User Impacts
Since our user rely on IMDbPro for their work, dramatic changes can impact their ability to complete their tasks for the day.
- Changes should feel natural
- Change should show clear benefits
- Changes should be controlled and intentional
Measure after each change
Smaller changes are quicker to build and easier to measure reliably. If something trends in the wrong direction, it is easier to revert or adjust. This again helped build trust with the full team.
Tackling a Big Project
Gather Jobs to be Done
We chose this framework for various reasons:
- User centered
- Granular enough to be actionable
- Measurable
Multiple workshops were conducted with a large set of stakeholders to gather the various known jobs to be done.
Oraganize Jobs to be Done
Map Jobs to be done to Pages (Content Strategy)
Instead of creating long drop down menus with obscure names, content snippets were displayed directly on the page. This aided discovery and made it easier to scan large amounts of daily updates.
Design Output
A greatly simplified navigation
The solution was so simple that not a lot of visual output was created. It's not a drastic visual change, but it opened up the doors for the business to add features and content that made sense to users.
Evolution Plan
Even through the changes are not visually large, things have to be merged, moved and transformed. The work was designed to evolve over time instead of a big bang change.
This allowed us:
- Time to develop the changes to the nav across pages and tech stacks
- Time to design the new sections
- Time for the user to adjust
- Ability to measured changes
Project Outcomes
User Value
- Avoid user confusion
- Intuitive way to discover new features and content
- Task based birds-eye view on important information
Business Value
- Home for new features with greater visibility
- Increase usage for previously launched features
- Grow TAM with jobs based content areas
Tech Value
- Shrink scope into 1-2 sprint releases
- Easy to measure changes
- Reduce risk of roll back
To hear about the long term business value I provided, book a meeting with me.