Technology Catalogue
About
Technology Catalogue is a technology and expertise platform for the energy transition. It supports companies in finding and deploying the right technologies to reduce CO2 emission, increase efficiency and improve safety. It functions in three different directions- Company, Suppliers, and Tech experts.
My Role
I did user research, usability testing, and worked on user flow. I also collaborate closely with cross-functional teams. We've already released the new onboarding and subscription features, and we've noticed a big boost in user engagement since then.
What I did
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Create project roadmap and user flow applying Agile Methodologies.
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Conduct user research to develop the best possible functionalities for users.
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Collaborate with stakeholders to ensure platform wide consistency and designs that are in line with user research findings.
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Conducting usability testing and rapid prototype to iterate, validate ideas and enhance design flow.
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Working together with the front-end to determine the best possible options for existing and future features.
Problem statement
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Quantitative research showed the bounce rate on the landing page was quite high.
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There were fewer signups, which had a direct impact on the revenue of the company.
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The subscription plan had a low acceptance rate.
Process
Empathize
01
We began the process by interviewing current users to learn more about their understanding of the product, pain points, and concerns.
I worked closely with cross-functional teams, marketing teams, and stakeholders for user research and user flow.
Interview Questions_Qualitative Research
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What was your initial reaction when you looked at the technology catalogue page?
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What do you think this product does?
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Where do you start from?
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What do you expect to gain from this product?
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Are you aware of the platform's subscription screen?
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Was anything surprising or did not perform as expected?
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Was the landing page simple to comprehend?
During the interview, I discovered that several users were unaware of the platform's subscription screen. As a result, I decided to conduct usability testing right then and there in order to identify all of the gaps in the onboarding and subscription processes.
Interview Questions for Usability Testing
Since we had 10k+ users, I thought it would be a good idea to conduct a discussion with them using the technologycatalogue platform and ask them the following questions.
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Can you log in to this platform.
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What is the first impression you get when you see landing page?
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Can you find the subscription screen on this platform?
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Can you navigate to the subscription page?
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Tell me what do you understand on this subscription page?
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Can you walk through the whole process of subscription?
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Which is the best subscription plan according to you and why?
This process gave us the clarity of the core problems that are faced by the users and we has better understanding of the pain points
Old User Flow
We chose to create user flows since technologycatalogue has three different types of users (technology suppliers, technology experts, and end users) in order to clarify the process and identify any gaps.
The screenshot below from Miro Board depicts the entire sign-up and log-in process for various use cases. We made notes when creating this flow that we opted to keep in mind during user research. With this we were able to obtain a better understanding of the entire process
Competitor Analysis
I identified several direct and indirect competitors and thoroughly researched each of them to gain a better knowledge of the present market and its potential.
Direct competitors: Kakivik asset management
Indirect Competitors: Hawk Consultants, Great western oil and gas
02
Define
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Users were unclear about "what" TC offers and "how" they will benefit from it.
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Users were unable to compare plans since they did not understand the subscription plan at first.
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Users perceive the onboarding procedure to be extremely lengthy.
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Users don't see why they should pay for a subscription?
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Users become perplexed as soon as they arrive on the page and were unsure of what to do next.
Findings from User Research
Name: Peter
Age: 36
Occupation: CEO of Atom
Lives In: Netherlands
Bio:
As the company's CEO, he believes in incorporating cutting-edge technology and staying updated with market trends. He admits that understanding or identifying the appropriate technologies for his organisation might be tough at times. To deal with this situation, he spends a significant amount of effort finding and reading about technology on various platforms, which is time-consuming.
Goals:
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Wants a platform with the most up-to-date technologies as per the company's domain.
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Needs professionals to identify and fix the technological problem.
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Keep up with the competition.
Frustations:
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Keeping up with the latest trends and innovations is time-consuming and tough.
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Finding professionals from the same domain is difficult.
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Due to rising competition, it's also difficult to find customers.
03
Ideate
New User Flow with solution
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If the user did not have a profile- In this use case only vital information was included in this scenario, and we altered the profile page by adding necessary information.
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I also decided to remove the verify option (verify option was for the users to verify their account through company admin) and replaced it with email verification, allowing users to sign up directly.
Usability testing_Phase 2
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We conducted usability testing again in order to understand what the users feel about the new process and if we were on the right track. We also wanted to make sure that the process is faster.
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By this time, we were also planning to combine the subscription and signup processes. So we also made high-fidelity prototypes for usability testing.
Results of usability testing
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20% of users felt satisfied with the signup process and liked the idea of merging of the subscription process with signup process. The remaining users wished to speed up the signup procedure since they believed that combining the subscription and signup processes would make it time-consuming once again.
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We also discussed the idea of combining the subscription and registration processes with the marketing team, and they were in favour of it.
Iterations
We once again began thinking through the process flow to see how we might combine the subscription and registration processes while maintaining time efficiency.
Final solution
After brainstorming on several ideas we decided to introduce "Signup through LinkedIn".
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Why did we decided this?
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As we brainstormed and talked with the stakeholders, we realised that the most important details were name, email, firm name, and country. This data can also be obtained from LinkedIn, allowing the user to join up with only one click and go straight to the subscription page.
Major challenge post high fidelity wireframe.
We conveyed the idea to the stakeholders before beginning the UI design that we want to combine the signup and subscription processes. They immediately responded "NO" and stated that the onboarding process would take too long and we would lose users.
How did I convince them!
The stats from our interview and usability testing were included in the presentation I created. We were ultimately able to persuade them by providing them with the data and study results.
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In order to help them comprehend the concept and see the wider picture, I also designed a user flow for them.
Elaborating user flow combined with paper prototype
We then started with concept sketching and brainstorming with the team for UI Designs.​
04
UI Designs
Designed style sheet from scratch in order to maintain consistency across platform. This will also ensure that the user will be able to move smoothly throughout the app.
This part of homepage mainly focuses primarily on WHAT technologycatalogue does and HOW users will benefit from it and WHY should they use the platform.
Users can look for modules and technologies depending on their individual interests or their company's domain.
Only mandatory information is requested on the sign-up screen.
The subscription screen is divided into two groups (individuals and teams), and the plans have been created to meet the needs of both groups.
The billing page summarises the subscription and requests information for the payment procedure.
Conclusion
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After redesigning the subscription flow for end-user and supplier we received a lot of positive feedbacks.
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User subscription rate increased to about 72% as they were able to compare the subscription plan upfront.
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About 83% of signups increased within 1 month of the launch as the signup process got simplified and we also introduced direct signup through LinkedIn.