Overview

Product designer, 2018 - 2021. My work stretches from end user experience design when I first joined, to a focused effort on internal tooling in later days. This case study is focused on the latter.

Scope: Integrated rights management platform, administrating copyright lifecycle

Timeline: 2.5 years 

My role:  End to end design, including defining product strategy, producing concepts, visuals and prototype, phased rolled out, built and maintained a design system 

Tools: Sketch, Zeplin, dovetail (research)

Context

Initiated by the head of product, in early 2019, I partnered with a small team of product managers and engineers to explore and align on the problem areas,

• Antiquated technology, slow and unreliable

• Fragmented workflow, heavily reliant on manual processes that are time-consuming and dependent on individual operational expertise 

• Absence of a single source of truth, coupled with a large volume of data, creates significant challenges in tracking and responding to updates

Process

I would like to tell the story within the classic design thinking framework, divergent to convergent (x2), moving from discovery to synthesis, design, and iteration. But in retrospect when I examine a project spanning over 2.5 years, it gets messy, or organic if we prefer. 

So instead, I will try to narrate the experience centering around the core challenges we were trying to solve: 

• HMW effectively intake and deliver content from creators to corresponding upstream service so their works are registered timely? 

• HMW streamline royalties processing so people are paid on time and accurately?

The underlying implication in addressing both challenges is we will also need to construct and maintain a source of truth for all entities and relationships among them.

Early discovery

In order to create a cohesive connection between the two pieces,  I led a (mini) design sprint with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)  from the product and engineering team. The goal was to gather insights, ideas, and perspectives in order to build consensus and a unified approach. 

Also among the early discoveries was a Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) mapping, which I started by interviewing and shadowing various teams (including copyright coordination, royalty processing, and finance).  Understanding what specific functions needed to be accomplished throughout the copyright lifecycle, lineated the landscape and guided me in framing the subsequent research effectively.

Through design, prototyping, testing, and iteration, we automated and streamlined the workflow, reducing processing time from over 10 hours to just a few minutes with a few clicks. This transformation freed up and empowered the team to focus on more specialized problem-solving required their expertise

The simplicity was achieved through handling the heavy lifting in the back stage. We invested months in regular work sessions with key stakeholders to understand all the interested parties, relationships and processes in facilitating the operation. This allowed us to effective ideate and co-create, and established a solid object model that forms the foundation for our solution.

Part 2 - content

Similarly, I conducted extensive research (interviews,  contextual inquiries, co-creation ) with key stakeholders (copyright team), to align on the priority, and further map out essential user actions.  We observed similar challenges, e.g. time consuming fragmented actions, but different problems, we extrapolated

• Abstract and standardize the complex business relations with upstream service providers

• Effectively translate and communicate the essential information and tasks to both operations and end users

• Develop simple and elegant workflow, to support a large integrated system

We conducted extensive research sessions with key stakeholders, aligned on the priority, and mapped out essential user actions. Throughout the design and development phase, we collaborated closely, seeking their direct input and feedback and quickly reacted and iterated.

During testing, including User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and usability testing,  we saw overall improvement in task completion, task time, errors, and user satisfaction.  The time consuming registration process was reduced from hours * (depending on the task at hand) to a few minutes with a few clicks. 

However, we’ve encountered resistance in adopting the tool despite the outcome. While it automated away all the piecemeal actions in checking and double checking registration are going to the right place, some operators expressed uncertainty about the accuracy of those decisions. Someone summarized it neatly in one of the usability testing sessions, transparency to logic is really important for us to build  trust with the system.

We quickly adopted this learning and introduced new features to address these concerns.

 Closing notes

Through the release of the calculator and delivery tool, we saw drastic improvement in operational efficiency, successfully reducing dependency on external tools, and providing access to in-house catalog management. 

It was truly a team effort, involving enormous work, and it was rewarding to see how it came together, one step at a time. I was intimately involved in this project at every stage, from building object models with engineers to pushing every Zeplin update. It was both challenging and validating. and I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to lead such a large, complex, and long-term project at that point in my career.