Search Redesign
Role
User Experience Designer
TImeline
Sept 2021 – Dec 2022
Team
Product Manager
Developers
Solutions Architect
Accessibility Team
Organization Overview
Contact Technologies specializes in developing the technology that drives Apple’s global contact centers. Our agents provide critical support to customers worldwide, while managers play a key role in coaching these agents to ensure exceptional service quality.
Team Functionality & Collaboration
Our team focuses on creating and refining the software that enables managers to effectively monitor and coach their agents. We are currently undertaking a significant overhaul of our tools, starting with a new application designed to streamline the monitoring process. This initiative involves close collaboration with our business partners, who are responsible for defining the technology requirements based on feedback from contact center teams and the Strategic Quality team. These partners also champion our projects to their leadership, securing approval and support.
Project Objectives
The current system requires managers to navigate through multiple applications to coach their agents. Our goal is to consolidate these disparate tools into a unified, cohesive application, simplifying the coaching process and enhancing efficiency.
Significance
With over 16,000 managers overseeing more than 100,000 agents, who collectively serve over a million users, the impact of this project is substantial.
User Impact
The new application design will optimize search functionalities, reducing the time spent per search query by approximately 15 seconds and saving a total of 13,000 seconds per month.
Current Designs
Pain Points
Users do not know where to start searching
Search bar is not visible
Steep learning curve
Filters are not intuitive
Too many steps to complete a search
Search results are unorganized
No way to filter the results
Too many columns
Cognitive overload
Buttons do not look like actionable buttons
Problems
Outdated (Over 10+ years old)
Not accessible through the VoiceOver features and easy keypress access
Functional-centric rather than user-centric
Discovery Research
Methodology
[Structured] 30 minutes video call
[Unstructured] Ad-hoc random interview
Study
Conducted comprehensive research to identify current pain points and areas for improvement. This involved executing both structured interviews, guided by a detailed script, and unstructured interviews, allowing for open-ended feedback on the overall look and feel of the system.
“Search should not be this complicated. This should be simple and straight-forward.”
“I’m a little confused with what I’m looking at. It looks like this project had no designers on it.”
Initial Iterations
Feedbacks
Stakeholders
The search landing page isn't very welcoming.
This is still looking very similar to the current application.
Team
How can we unify search?
The search functionality is not scalable. We have more search criteria to add in the next few years.
User
We want to see as many results as possible. A lot of the real-estate is taken with the search features.
Like the color addition.
Challenges & Constraints
Technical Constraints
Not enough resources to have a lot of UI updates and new features
We are starting from ground zero in terms of information architecture and infrastructure.
Business Constraints
This has to be in production by December 2022.
Challenges
Stakeholders resistant to change.
Solo Designer
Approach – Design Workshop
Participants
Business stakeholders
Product Manager
Development Lead
1 User volunteer
Learnings
Business really cares about the number of clicks it takes the users to complete a task.
Development Lead wants to create as many reuable components.
Product Managers want to create a screen with less new features to make sure we make deadlines.
Users want something new and clean. A UI that is compliant with Apple Standards.
Second Iteration
Feedbacks
Stakeholders
Really like the concept of bookmarking. We want it. The users will really like this and there are a lot of use cases that will fit all users.
Team
Like the innovation; however, with the timeline, may not be feasible. With the resources, this may have to be post-MVP.
User
This is really clear but we want tabbing back.
Really like this concept, it's a nice to have though.
Final Iteration
Metrics
4 out of 5 users reported less computer crashing due to effective search methods and advanced search
Our team saw a 35% decrease in troubleshooting call volumes
Our team with the redesign ensured accessibility compliance
“It’s a lot cleaner and simpler to use. Each search and managing calls take so much less time. ”
“This new product is so much better to work with. I look forward to working with this product a lot more than the previous one”
“Even though it’s an internal tool, I like how thoughtful the designs look. It looks more like an Apple product”
🎉 My Takeaways
I've become a very well-rounded designer. I learned how to effectively articulate my designs to business, developers, and PMs. It was an eye opening moment to experience the power of design in conversations and meeting.
Search is very difficult to design for. Through this search redesign process, I realized the depth of search functionalities and the all the use cases the designs had to support.