The SaaS application is a work management software for factories. This project simplified the flow from receiving email to complete a work order by a middle page that allow user to quick close a work order without login.
Time
Within a 2 week's sprint
Team
1 Product Owner, 2 Engineers and 1 Designer (me)
My Role
Product Strategy, User Research, Interface Design, Design Handovers
Tools
Figma, Miro, Trello, Linear
* Upon agreement, sensitive information in this project was omitted.
In a nutshell
Problem
The
Goal
Simplify the flow from getting email notification to finishing work order
Solution
A quick and
Challenge
Background
Feature: work orders planning and executing
The SaaS application is an all-in-one solution for the management of small to mid size factories. One of the most important features is work order, which authourizes the maintenance or operations work by clear information and specification.
Completion of a work order generally follows these steps:
Reactive, proactive, and predictive work order planning by assigner.
Work order received and executed by assignee.
Assignee reports the result in app.
Assigner reviews the work order.
Screenshot from a customer’s work order list in the app.
Problem
Overdue work order
Though analysing application data, we found that sometimes work orders are left open/unfinished in the app, get overdue, and are never set to done.
After a period of time, the system is overflowing with overdue work orders (which has a red tag to remind users) that other important information becomes inconspicuous. Gradually the system becomes inefficient and demotivating.
How might we...
Reduce the overdue rate of work orders?
Having interviewed the pilot customers, we found various reasons causing this issue, which need to be solved by different projects in various sprints. In this project, we’ll focus on the flow from email notifications.
Occasions for sending email notifications.
Why email notification matters?
In the stage of web app (PWA), it’s not easy for us to push notification (especially on iOS system) to notify end users with important informations. So besides the in-app notification centre, we highly rely on email notification to engage with users.
Project Goal
Increase the closed work order rate via email
Within the 4 scenarios “work order is assigned” and “work order will be overdue” are related to finishing work orders.
To increase the closed rate of a work order, we’d focus on the click rate of the button in emails and the rate of editing work order status.
Metrics to track:
Email Open Rate
Number of opened (read) email.
Clickthrough Rate
Click on the buttons or links inside email.
Status Editing
Work orders set to closed (done / cancel).
Research & Strategy
Review
Current Email template
Our current email notification is simple, with basic information like “who assigned which work order to you.” Users can click the hyperlinks in text or the button to access to the App to view the work order in detail.
- Not enough information in both subject and content
- Information are display as text paragraph
- Must login to access more information
- Must login to edit work order status
The ideal flow to complete work via email
In reality...
Tactical research finding
Users need a simplified way to close work order
- When a work order is simple, users tend to go to the work directly without viewing the app.
- Users love simplified procedures, but the possibility of access to detailed information and take more actions should not be excluded.
- Users expect to see more information in a notification, not just the names.
- Security is important to users even without login.
- Focus on simple work orders without many procedures or documents.
Interview Notes
Strategy
Skip some unnecessary steps in the Flow
Focusing on simple work orders without procedures and documents, we like to provide users the possibility to go to the work directly with the information from emails, and close the work order even without login.
Ideation
Simple flow to edit status
We had a quick ideation round to outline a few possible solution. Among which, an idea of have a button in email notification caught our eye. User can click a “set as done” button in email, and be taken to our app, where he can change the status without login.
Although it might require some efforts in developing, but we believe this idea would bring great value, even beyond this project.
Solution
New Flow
We focus on the simple work order, for which users can finish the work without login. In this case, users can go to the “update status” page to change the work order status to “done” without login.
As the orange flow below, it skips some steps compared to a normal (blue) flow, while having the possibility to go to the blue flow.
Email Template Redesign
Offer more info in email
Solution
A button in email to quickly complete work order
By Clicking the “mark as finished” button, users will be take to the middle page, where user can quickly change the status of the work order and leave comments/images/files without login.
Prototype
Follow Up Email
Reminder for changing the status
If the email is still unfinished after opening the mail, we’d send user the follow-up email before the due date to remind users to mark the work order as finished.
*The notification preference can be changed in setting of the system or with the link under email.
Evaluation
Success Metric
Pilot Customer Testing & Feedback
We ended up launching the MVP after the sprint and tested with pilot customers. Here are some data we collected 1.5 months after launching.
+5%
Email Opened
+18%
Clickthrough Rate
+24%
Status Editing
The data here shows a result combined with some other revisions in the app. But overall, our customers are positive about the new email template & status update page. We expect to see more impact over a longer period of time.
Feedbacks
Think the new email notification content provide enough information for them to work on the task.
Find the quick edit status page easy to follow.
Think the quick edit status page will help them the close the work order.
Feel willingness to open email notification increase.