70 hours of training in 20 minutes of onboarding

Background

In a corporate landscape, the need to foster strong cross-organizational collaborations is paramount for delivering exceptional products to our users. This project delves into enhancing the onboarding experience for new users of flood sensors from a recently acquired company, with the goal of promoting the adoption of our in-house flood monitoring software.

Strategic focus

Devoting time to strategize was instrumental in our success. We identified the following areas of opportunity:

Problem statement

How can we facilitate immediate flood response for hydrologists and flooding specialists in small municipalities who have just acquired our software

Final design

After rounds of collaboration, user and stakeholder interviews, a simple onboarding was designed to enable flood responders to set up their data within minutes.

Iterative process - design sprint

Recognizing my lack of prior knowledge in flood monitoring, we chose an iterative approach to the design:

Day 1: problem definition & outcomes

Day 2: expert interviews and knowledge gathering

Day 3: competitive research

Day 4: collaborative solution sketching

Day 5: user journey maping and planning

User testing - key leanings

We engaged with seven municipality flooding experts to test our mock-ups. Through these conversations, we identified five potential target users, which allowed us to focus on building the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Tedious data upload

Uploading flooding data was a cumbersome task, particularly for small municipalities with up to 300 locations to monitor. Filling out nine fields per location was time-consuming.

Solution: pre-filled templates

We leveraged the existing threshold data stored in spreadsheets and created csv templates. This allows users to complete the task in minutes using a familiar tool.

Granular alerts setup

Many municipalities monitor numerous locations but share data with only a few governmental organizations. Granularity introduced unnessesary complexity.

Solution: suggested alerts

We implemented suggested alerts by pulling data from different applications. Hydrologists now only need to make a choice regarding the recipients of updates.

Uclear publishing step

Users were uncomfortable with the immediate public data publishing. They expressed the desire to "try it out" before making data public.

Solution: built in preview

We incorporated a built-in preview feature, allowing users to navigate through the system and experiment with it before finalizing the data for publication.

Impact

200 times faster setup

The streamlined setup process enables small municipalities to independently use our software without undergoing months of training.

Increased product interest

The simplified setup has made our product more attractive to a broader customer base, including those who don't possess the specific sensors we initially targeted.

Unified customer experience

User testing revealed a significantly improved user experience, creating a cohesive journey from product purchase to everyday use.