Stakeholder Objective
Improve user experience building agendas and taking meeting minutes. Make note of where the site can incorporate the use of an AI assistant.
Scope
Focus attention on the agenda builder and meeting minutes pages.
Target Users
Current and new BoardSpace users.
Solution
After completing a heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, interviews, and guerrilla testing, the team determined that the use of hover tooltips, minimizing the use of filled buttons, and standardizing page formats would improve overall user experience.
Tools
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Figma
My Role
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Team Lead
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Heuristic Evaluation
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Competitive Analysis
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User Interviews
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Guerrilla Testing
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Mockups
Timeline
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4 Weeks
Team
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Stephanie Bautista
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Trixie Gale Obnimaga
Deliverables
Project Plan
Trixie
Outline of the scope, goal, future deliverables, and timeline of the project
Heuristic Analysis
Trixie and Stephanie
Identify design strengths and weaknesses using Jackob's Laws
Competitive Analysis
Stephanie
Research value and shortcoming of competitors
User Interviews
Stephanie
Uncover patterns and themes relating to user experiences
Guerrilla Testing
Trixie and Stephanie
Gather unbiased user feedback on current design
Mockups
Stephanie
Presentation of design ideas for future testing and development
Design Process
Discover
Empathize
Design
Discovery
Heuristic Evaluation
After meeting with the BoardSpace founder and CEO, my team decided to conduct a heuristic evaluation of the agenda builder and meeting minutes pages of the site. This enabled us to identify usability issues since the stakeholder was unable to pinpoint what areas of the site she was concerned about or specify user complaints.
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View full heuristic analysis here.
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
Interfaces should not contain information which is irrelevant. Every extra unit of information in an interface competes with the relevant units of information.
Meetings Homepage
Findings:
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Overuse of filled buttons distracts users from knowing the primary action of the page
Left alignment of meeting details creates imbalance on the page
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Recommendations
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Identify the primary user action and nest other meeting actions in an ellipsis icon
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Re-align meeting information to create visual balance on the page
Error Prevention
Good error messages are important, but the best designs prevent problems from occurring in the first place.
Agenda Builder Page
Findings:
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4
Once clicked, the added subitem box isn’t highlighted - the new field only gets outlined once clicked
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Incorrectly created sub sub-items when only sub-items were needed
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Errors only noticeable from the View/Print Agenda page
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Users must save work manually but are not prompted to save before leaving the Builder Page
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Recommendations:
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Newly added items/sub-items are highlighted until user clicks out of them
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Re-name the sub-item text button to sub sub-item if that's what will be added to the page
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Indent sub-items and sub sub-items to match the final layout of the agenda
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Prompt users to save work before they leave the page with a pop up
Visibility of System Status
Designs should keep users informed about what is going on through appropriate, timely feedback.
Attendance Page
Findings
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Unclear what user is supposed to do on this page because of lack of heading
No prompting or on screen controls to manually progress the meeting forward at bottom of screen
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2
Recommendations
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Clarify the page by placing a title directly on it
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The page changes automatically to the Call Meeting to Order page
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Combine the Attendance and Call to Order pages
Call to Order Page
Findings
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Unclear if the meeting is started once the "Call to Order" button is pressed
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Too many filled buttons on screen
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Recommendations
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The "Call to Order" changes to a different color
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A notification appears on screen indicating that the meeting is now in session
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Limit the number of filled buttons on screen to focus user attention
Close Meeting Page
Findings
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Unclear if meeting was closed after pressing the "Close Meeting" button
1
Recommendations
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Create a clear indication on the page that the meeting is closed such as a button change or a pop up notification
Consistency and Standards
Designs should keep users informed about what is going on through appropriate, timely feedback.
Meeting Minutes
Findings
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Too many icons on screen create user confusion
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Unclear what all text boxes are for without textbox labels
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Not all text boxes are intended to be used for meeting minutes which causes user confusion
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Uncommon usage of eye icon
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Inconsistency with text box alignment creates a sense of disorganization
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1
Recommendations
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Nest icons under an ellipsis
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Add dummy to get users started
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Included text box labels to keep users organized
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Change eye icon to a lock to indicate content will be private
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Maintain consistent alignment with text fields and make them mimic the alignment of the agenda
Competitive Analysis
Conducting competitive analysis helped us gain a better understanding of board management products; their strengths and weaknesses; similarities and differences; and take note of opportunities for BoardSpace to enhance and improve user experience.
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We specifically chose a more traditional board management site, Board Pro, because it mirrored the capabilities of BoardSpace. Govenda is also a board management site, but it advertises itself as the only site to have a fully incorporated AI assistant. We included Click Up and Monday.com in our analysis even though they are not typical board management sites because they advertise themselves as sites that can assist users in building agendas and managing meetings.
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View full competitive analysis here.
Key Takeaways
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Option to send meeting agenda to board members from the agenda builder
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Text prompts in text boxes included to assist users
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Agenda notes can be made on digital copies by attendees and presenters to prepare for meetings
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Clear to-do-list for users once a meeting is completed
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Built in AI assistants to assist users in building agendas
Empathize
User Interviews
To gain deeper insights on the BoardSpace site we spoke with current BoardSpace users. These conversations helped us understand what areas of the site need enhancement.
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View interview script and notes here.
Interview Takeaways
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​Interest in the ability to copy content from one meeting agenda to another
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Interest in the possibility of AI acting as the recording secretary
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Appreciation of the reusable and customizable templates
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Difficulty getting board members to sign onto BoardSpace to complete assigned action items
Guerrilla Testing
Since we were unable to connect with at least five current users, conducting a round of guerrilla testing allowed us to quickly evaluate the BoardSpace visual design, functionality, and intuitiveness while gathering feedback on opportunities for improvement.
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View the full guerrilla usability test report and notes here.
Heather
It would be easier for recording secretaries to use keyboard controls to progress the meeting forward instead of having to use the side navigation only.
Noah
Why does adding a sub sub-item look the same as adding a regular sub-item? They should be called something different.
Yesenia
There should be a more obvious indication that the meeting is successfully closed.
Guerrilla Testing Takeaways
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​Rename the sub-item text button to make it more clear when a sub sub-item is added
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Remove the bottom socials banner
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Make the top control buttons smaller on agenda builder page to maximize screen space
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Combine content from attendance page and call to order page
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Make it obvious when a meeting is called to order and when it is successfully closed
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Make meeting minutes text boxes immediately available on screen
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Include bottom controls to move forward or backward while in a meeting
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Include hover tooltips for icons
Design
Mockups
Leveraging our understanding of current users and pinpointing problem areas during guerrilla testing allowed us to make informed decisions on how to re-design the agenda builder page and revamp meeting minutes pages.
Meetings Page
Redesign Details
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Meeting details spaced evenly across the tab​
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Colored buttons removed and available actions housed in an options ellipsis (tooltip appears on hover)​​
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Available actions appear when clicked
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Agenda Builder Redesign
Redesign Details
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Outlined buttons replaced with buttons that appear on hover​
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Sub-item text buttons replaced with plus icon (tooltip appears on hover)​
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Sub-items and sub-sub-items indented to resemble a finished agenda
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Attendance/Call to Order Pages
Redesign Details
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Filled 'Select All' button replaced with checkbox​
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'Call to Order' button will have different states​
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Disabled
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Active
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Indicator (once meeting is in session)
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Pup-up appears to notify users that meeting is officially in session
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Meeting Minutes Redesign
Redesign Details
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Options ellipsis houses user actions (tooltip appears on hover; menu appears on click)
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Eye icon replaced with lock icon to maintain consistency with traditional use (tooltip shows its functionality)
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Navigation controls added to the bottom of each page
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Meeting Minutes Redesign
Redesign Details
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Differentiated button states indicate when a meeting cannot be closed and why​
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Text explanation regarding optional seconder to close meeting omitted​
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Options for adding signatures to meeting aligned vertically
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Pop-up appears indicating that the meeting is closed
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Button on page changes to an outlined button
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AI Inclusion
Design Ideas
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Use the company mascot, Bill, as the new AI assistant and place a button to use him at the top of the Meetings page
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To introduce him, create a pop-up that lists how he can assist users with their meetings
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Next Steps
Due to time constraints, my team was only able to create mockups for our design suggestions. If the project time with the client were longer, the next steps of our design process would have been:​
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​Creation of a clickable prototype
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Usability tests either with current users or guerrilla tests
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Iteration of prototype to improve our designs
Reflection
Working on this project was both a challenging and rewarding experience. In four short weeks working with BoardSpace, my team encountered several challenges, including resistance from the client, an inability to connect with several current users, and scheduling issues with guerrilla testers.
However, leveraging usability heuristics and guerrilla testing insights allowed us to make design decisions that positively impacted the layout and flow of the agenda builder and meeting minutes pages while also ultimately pleasing the CEO and company Developer.
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