CASE STUDY
PathFactory - Harmonizing UX EcoSystem
From Audit Insights to a Robust Short & Long-term Design Strategy
OVERVIEW
I partnered with two fellow designers on a strategic five-week initiative for PathFactory. Our objective was to analyze their design landscape and provide actionable enhancement recommendations. My focus involved conducting in-depth platform and design system audits, evolving user personas and key user flows, optimizing information architecture, creating wireframes and high-fidelity concepts, and establishing a design strategy that aligns with PathFactory's core values. The result was a strategic, unified design framework that enhanced design system usage and platform usability, paving the way for PathFactory's future UX success.
CLIENT
PathFactory
ROLE
Sr. Visual & Interaction Designer
SERVICES
Research, Product & Design System Audits, IA, Interaction Design, UI/UX, Design Strategy & Governance, Design Roadmap & Backlog
TEAM
Punchcut
DURATION
5 weeks
TOOLS
Figma
BACKGROUND
PathFactory's
Design Landscape
PathFactory, a content intelligence platform, caters to marketers, content strategists, and sales teams. As its product suite expanded, the platform experienced inconsistencies across its design system and live platform. Recognizing the need for a unified user experience, PathFactory made it a priority to address these inconsistencies.
↑ Initial PathFactory platform with inconsistent layouts, styles, & components.
The Process
Discover
Discovery Workshops
Discovery Summary
User Research
Evolve User Personas
Audit
Establish Audit Framework
Product & System Audit
Review Audit Findings
Ideate
Identify Key Use-Cases
Establish Design Principles
IA & Spatial Models
Deliver
Audit Deck & Table
Opportunity Brief
UX/UI Recommendations
Future Roadmap
Discovering the Vision
We collaborated with PathFactory in discovery workshops to understand challenges, business goals, and user needs. We defined Experience Principles, aligning with PathFactory's aspirations for the platform, which helped to set success criteria for the audit.
Opinionated
Clear guidance for user actions
Uncluttered
Streamlined & optimized for common tasks
Consistent
Familiar interface & interactions
Rewarding
Value-driven product experiences
Intelligent
Proactive delivery of relevant information
Empowering
Users can accomplish goals independently
↑ PathFactory Experience Principles which were defined in discovery workshops to guide next steps.
↑ User Personas for primary & secondary users.
DISCOVER
User Needs
My team and I defined two main user personas: Marketing Operations (Primary) and Marketing Leaders (Secondary).
These personas guided the ideation and design processes, helping to refine user flows and generate concepts based on user needs.
DISCOVER
Problem Statement
As PathFactory's platform grew and evolved, maintaining consistency between the design system and product features became a major obstacle. Developers introduced their own UI elements and interaction patterns during development, while designers utilized components that hadn't been finalized. This inconsistency across the platform and design system disrupted the user experience, highlighting the need for a comprehensive UI/UX audit and a unified design strategy.
Challenges
Lack of a unified design system impeded scalability and efficiency.
Platform's inconsistent UI led to a disjointed UX and confusion on usage.
Design system's disconnect from live platform impaired usability and consistency.
Absence of design system governance led to additions that caused inconsistency and confusion.
Business Goals
Conduct audits to understand the user journey and identify design system inconsistencies to guide improvement planning.
Improve platform intuitiveness and efficiency through recommendations on navigation and information architecture.
Establish clear design system governance strategies for consistency and to ensure platform design aligns with PathFactory's identity.
Streamline design and development processes to accelerate future updates while maintaining quality.
Product & Design System Audits
In two weeks, we conducted a comprehensive audit of PathFactory's live platform and design system, evaluating a range of features. The audit thoroughly analyzed visual styles, components, interaction patterns, and structural elements, surpassing client expectations and laying a strong groundwork for future improvements.
PRODUCT AUDIT
UX Evaluation Criteria
Navigation Architecture
Spatial Model
Layouts
Content Structures
Key Use Cases
DESIGN SYSTEM AUDIT
Interaction Patterns
Visual Style
Components
Audit Process
Evaluate design system for completeness & cohereance.
Analyze live platform, to identify UI & UX inconsistencies.
Analyze & document areas needing design unification.
Audit Goals
Identify missing elements in design system & live platform.
Aim for scalability & flexibility, noting gaps or areas to improve.
Offer guidance for consistently evolving & scaling design system.
Evaluate accessibility based on requirements to identify updates.
Prioritize key focus areas such as search and navigation.
PRODUCT & DESIGN SYSTEM AUDIT
Evaluation Criteria
The audit compared the design system with its usage in the live platform.
Evaluation criteria helped ensure success:
• Evaluate design system quality & effectiveness
• Identify gaps in design system & platform
• Assess efficiency of design & implementation
• Examine uniformity in design system & platform
• Policy assessment of standards & guidelines
↑ Design System Audit analyzing quality, completeness, & usage
↑ Live Platform Audit analyzing UI & interactions for inconsistencies.
PRODUCT & DESIGN SYSTEM AUDIT
Audit Documentation
I created an overview table comparing the current design system and live platform, identifying discrepancies and possible improvements. Key user flows were documented to identify UX issues. This provided insights for enhancements, revealed strengths and weaknesses, and paved the way for a strategic approach to improve the platform.
↑ Audit Documentation with findings in an an overview for comparison.
↑ Key User Flow Audit which analyzed pathways for issues
Audit Slide Deck
An audit slide deck was presented to PathFactory's team, delving into specific areas of focus.
PRODUCT & DESIGN SYSTEM AUDIT
Audit Challenges
& Insights
Despite various challenges, the audit uncovered key insights that were critical for the evolution of PathFactory's design landscape.
Complex Component Relationships
Understanding complex relationships among components was tough, so a systematic approach was key for the audit's success.
Significant Design Inconsistencies
The audit found key differences between the live platform and design system, offering valuable enhancement insights.
Redundancies & Missing Elements
The audit efficiently streamlined the task of spotting redundant, incomplete, or missing components in the vast platform.
Disparity in Implementation
The audit identified many disparities between the design system and its implementation in live products, impacting overall UX.
Lacking Guidelines & Governance
The audit revealed a necessity for enhanced guidelines and governance to safeguard the design system's integrity.
Opportunity Brief
The Opportunity Brief contains findings from the audit and recommends immediate and long-term opportunities to initiate improvements. It also outlines the next steps for PathFactory to enhance their product experience.
BRIEF CONTENTS
Attributes & Tenets
Short-term Opportunities
Long-term Opportunities
OPPORTUNITY BRIEF
Defining Heuristics
Building on the Experience Principles from the Discovery phase, we established PathFactory Heuristics which not only guided the opportunity brief but also laid the foundation for an optimal user experience.
PathFactory Heuristics
Organize platform to match user flows, aligning with their mental models.
Communicate system status & feedback on actions & suggest next steps.
Speak the users' language, using familiar words, phrases & concepts.
Ensure flexibility & efficiency, simplifying actions & offering customization.
Self-service help documentation should be searchable & focus on user tasks.
Minimize errors by offering users solutions to diagnose & rectify them.
OPPORTUNITY BRIEF
Short-term
Opportunities
Based on the audit, we identified easy win opportunities to improve the PathFactory product and design system with minimal time and resources. These updates could be completed shorter-term to set the foundation for a more user-friendly, efficient experience.
↑ Short-term interaction system opportunities
↑ Design System short-term opportunities
↑ Product Strategy short-term opportunities
Short-term Opportunity Slides
More in-depth details about short-term opportunities are outlined in a slide deck for PathFactory to use as a guide for immediate experience enhancements.
OPPORTUNITY BRIEF
Long-term
Opportunities
The Opportunity Brief also identified long-term opportunities for the experience, which are initiatives will require more time andeffort, but will have major impact on the future of the product and design system, making it more comprehensive, efficient, and scalable.
↑ Interaction System long-term opportunities
↑ Design System long-term opportunities
↑ Project Strategy long-term opportunities
Long-term Opportunity Slides
A presentation for long-term opportunities was presented to PathFactory, offering a roadmap for sustained future experience advancements.
Reimagining PathFactory
Leveraging audit insights and beginning to implement our opportunity recommendations, we embarked on reimagining PathFactory as a top-tier experience for marketing users. The goal was to equip their team with actionable guidance for improvements that would evolve the platform into a consistent, intuitive, and user-centric experience.
REIMAGINING CONTENTS
IA & Spatial Models
Navigation Structure
Key User Flow Updates
Low-fidelity Wireframes
High-fidelity Screen Designs
Future Roadmap & Backlog
Concept Strategy
Empower users with platform personalization, providing tailored experiences that cater to preferences & boost user engagement.
Utilize AI to guide users & assist them in completing tasks by providing personalized recommendations based on user behavior.
Use progressive disclosure to provide key information first, with more details as needed, to avoid overload & improve intuitiveness.
Integrate tools in context of tasks to maintain user focus, minimizing workflow disruptions & boosting their productivity.
↑ Revised User Lifecycle guided by persona responses
↑ Content structure and updated object hierarchy
↑ Spatial Model defining UI interactions in working space
↑ Area guidelines for working space & panel interactions
↑ Updated platform information architecture & navigation
↑ Navigation interaction & layout recommendations
↑ Navigation Model with search, actions, top & second level nav
↑ Annotated wireframes as key user flows are backed by user quotes, themes, assumptions, & context.
REIMAGINING PATHFACTORY
Refining Key User Flows
Understanding key user flows was crucial for enhancing the UX. We identified these flows through user quotes, themes, working assumptions, and context. We then created low-fidelity wireframes, annotating each step.
REIMAGINING PATHFACTORY
Evolving Navigation
Navigation information architecture improvements were achieved through evolving interactions and spatial models, shown in information architecture diagrams and low-fidelity wireframes.
↑ Proposed navigation information architecture structure with supporting wireframe.
REIMAGINING PATHFACTORY
Low-fidelity Wireframes
Creating low-fidelity wireframes for hero screens facilitated an understanding of the optimal architecture and layout for each screen.
↑ Hero screen low fidelity wireframes with improved IA, layout, & UX.
REIMAGINING PATHFACTORY
Home Screen Concept
Evolving the home screen wireframe, I created a high-fidelity concept, enhancing navigation, components, and page layout. This concept served as a visual guide, aiming to steer PathFactory in the right direction throughout their future platform improvements.
↑ High-fidelity concept of the Home screen with improved layout, navigation, & optimized components.
Impactful Results
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20%
Increase in overall user satisfaction scores post-implementation
67
Team members
15%
Growth
Impactful Results
User Satisfaction and Engagement
The project greatly enhanced PathFactory's platform usability & coherence. Through thorough auditing, strategic enhancements, & continuous evaluation, the design system evolved to meet user needs & tech advancements, ensuring scalability & effective user service.
Clear Visual Language
The audit's strategic improvements addressed immediate enhancements & outlined long-term strategies, resulting in a more intuitive user experience. The success of this project demonstrated the significant role comprehensive audits play in enhancing the consistency, usability, & efficiency of a product suite.
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Key Learnings
Importance of a Unified Design Language
Uniform design is key for a strong UX, and diverse styles cause confusion and impact usability. This project emphasized the importance of consistency across diverse product offerings.
Importance of Prioritizing Opportunities
Creating an opportunity brief highlighted the importance of prioritization, enabling PathFactory to focus on areas impacting the user experience most and plan for future improvements.
Value of a Comprehensive Audit
Sometimes, a comprehensive audit is the only way to identify key improvements, as in this initiative for PathFactory. Evaluating the design system and product suite led to a strategic design overhaul.
A Cohesive Design System is a Necessity
This project highlights the importance of a unified design system and governance strategy to prevent inconsistencies and enhance UX through proper documentation of design changes.
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