— CLIENT
SEEK
— ROLE
Product designer
— PROJECT TYPE
2 months – 2023
Summary
A leading global recruitment company, founded in Australia, provides their customers with different websites, experience and branding between the Australian/New Zeeland (ANZ) and the Asia market.
I jumped on one of their biggest initiatives so far, to provide one single platform, in this case the ANZ website, that will fulfil all their existing and potential customers needs.
So in my case, I made sure payment options for ASIA hirers were available for them to pay their invoices, connected to the look and feel to the rest of the website and drove the discussion to make improvements on the payment option "Virtual account" for Indonesia.
Time is the limit
I was at this company for three months on contract but particularly for this project, approximately two. Now, I've been part of projects for around the same time before with the difference that I've mostly been able to be around, see and even be a part of initiatives on the outcome after implementation.
First time on a contract role experience! 🙌🏼
You may think, moving payment options from one website to another wont be much of an issue during my time there. There's always much more to it:
• Understanding and design the ASIA payment options that worked both differently among themselves but also compared to ANZ payment options.
Focusing on great copy and consistency as much as possible felt crucial.
For example, Australia had two options, debit card or by invoice. There was also one offline method option which honestly I just found confusing.
In Asia, they could have up to five options and many of them were digital payments similar to Paypal.
• I was working with two teams, the ASIA team and the ANZ team.
Neither of the teams knew much about their counterpart on how managing invoices actually worked from technical, user or from a communication point of view between hirer and our system (like confirmation emails or other).
So, with no doubt, I grabbed this challenge right away!
• Thirdly, the way hirers pay with a payment option called "Virtual" account would change. They would have to pay directly when provided with the bank details or save them manually instead of getting an email. 🤯
This really sounded like risky business so I dug deeper into this one too.
Buzzing through the jungle of information
Like a fly on the wall as we Swedes say
Handling a large organization often means dealing with a substantial amount of material, and this was no exception. With limited time to grasp everything, I made sure not to be a fly on the wall. Instead, I quickly identified the right people, asked numerous questions, and became the annoying one known for asking a lot of "why:s" during meetings.
I was fortunate that our developers could provide a real walkthrough of the system and how users go about paying their invoices in various countries in Asia and ANZ. While documentation has its strengths, in fast-paced situations, visualisation becomes even more critical. The fastest way to absorb just enough information is through visual aids, allowing a swift kickstart.
Show, show & tell = transparency
With the risk of nagging with the journeys, task and user flows etc.. it really does a lot! So, for me to understand better and to ensure that both teams had insight into the payment process for the countries, I created the flow with accompanying images from the system. This way, discussions emerged about the implications of some changes, both technically and from a user perspective.
The special snowflake(?s)
The strength of UX copy and how it transforms something complex to a complete obvious feeling is astonishing. Yes, I'm pretty interested in UX-writing overall. I got to, for the first time, work with a UX copywriter and it gave me a lot of insights into how to make better copy myself since I've been responsible for most of it during my professional years.
One example was to how to make the CTA button or something else clear, so that the user understood what would happen after choosing different payment methods. Since you would pay directly in one, get redirected in others to get information to pay outside of the system to your bank.
Payment method – Virtual account for Indonesia
Even though the solution where the user gets an email sent to them with the details for them to be able to pay later was pretty much agreed upon that it it was the best solution there was still two main reasons why I had to have a plan B.
1. We could not gather data on how many users actually pay after closing the website neither how many users actually use the email sent to them with the bank details. However, there was data telling us most users did pay the first day.
2. Another team would have to implement the email solution and they had other implementations or tasks with higher priority which would result in delays for the big initiative to in the end shut down the two operating websites in ASIA.
Solution 1 (preferred)
Email sent to hirer with bank details
Solution 2
Bank details has to be saved manually for later payment
I had a presentation for both teams and stakeholders where I showed the whole invoice flow but emphasising solution 1 above. I had a meeting with my product team on the ASIA side previous to this presentation to make sure we were on the same page both on a business and technical perspective.
Actions further
We agreed upon actions for both teams.
For the implementation of Solution 1, there would be some further discussions with the stakeholders to see if we could gather some data and do a risk analysis of what could happen if we did not add the email functionality. If there was enough support for a high risk it could be considered a high priority to be done before moving entirely to the new website.
For example one implementation we thought would be of importance if we don’t proceed with the email solution would be the banner information. The banner below does not exist today.
Wrapping up
The handover.. already?! 😮💨
- Let’s say I’ve learned the significancy of being pragmatic which me when I was a junior UX would have been panicking about. It definitely is a wonderful learning process.
I did feel in a way that I was leaving in the middle of the project since it was not completely decided on which solution they would go on for payment method but I made sure all information was gathered, went through the sketches and which steps I saw were left to do with my fellow designer.
She, like me, will learn and understand along the way and most importantly, learn what you have to do to be able to let go with ease when you’re supposed to. Does not mean you stop caring though, that’s the curse of being a devoted designer.