Degreed
Project Type
Company’s project
Duration
4 months
Team
You Jin Lee, George Carlier, Aaron, Aaron Murdock
Description
I undertook a project that involved designing a configuration page tailored for users to input FTP Configuration details. This interface enables user friendly connectivity to a desired destination where users can download their reports.
My Role
I led the design in the Reporting team, while co-working with product manager, engineer manager, front-end engineer, and back-end engineer.
Success Metric
The final product was successfully launched in 2023, resulting in 97% of users setting up independently
Final Product
Problem
Numerous JIRA tickets highlighted challenges in the FTP Configuration setup process. Clients frequently faced difficulties, resorting to continuous email correspondence with Degreed technicians due to:
Lengthy setup procedures
No visibility of FTP Configuration connectivity
No way to make changes in FTP Configuration details except to reach out to Degreed technicians
Goal
“How can we provide clients with support for setting up FTP Configuration as a self-service system?”
User Research
Literature review
To start my project, I looked into past JIRA tickets and Confluence documents about FTP Configuration in Degreed. This helped me understand what FTP Configuration means in Degreed and how different products use this to make sure the new page interaction and its purpose align with other products.
User Persona
After studying these documents, I worked with a product manager to gain knowledge about user personas in the Reporting page and FTP Configuration. We looked closely at the different types of users and what each of them needs.
Secondary Research (This comes after ideation phase)
Spoiler Alert! - Because we are creating a new page, I checked out other websites with successful configuration pages. This gave us ideas on how to design our new Configuration page in the Reporting section to make it easy and helpful for users.
Insights
Literature Review
The definition of FTP Configuration within the Reporting page is a setup for File Transfer Protocol (FTP), which transfers files to a certain location. FTP is a system that transfers files. It’s a verb or action. These files typically consist of reports generated by the company to track the learning progress and information within the Learning Management System (LMS) and Learning Experience Platform (LXP).
Configuration is a place, the location, such as a desktop or Degreed FTP File location, and the user can connect the FTP system to that certain location so that the system transfers files to the designated location. After setting FTP configuration, users can then download reporting files, and those files will be downloaded to the connected location.
The FTP Configuration is linked to other administrative data within Degreed because the Reporting product contains all the administrative information and data. However, the FTP Configuration does not impact the functionality of other products since it exists exclusively within the Reporting section and will only be a connector. Therefore, introducing an FTP Configuration page or visible place will be safe to create, not affecting other products negatively.
User Persona
There are various types of users, including managers, global admins, and managers of managers. The use of FTP Configuration remains consistent across different user personas but varies based on user intentions. Some users prefer reports to be downloaded to their desktops, while others prefer reports to be downloaded to a designated Degreed FTP folder.
Secondary Research
Other products consistently featured dedicated sections for inputting FTP Configuration details and for displaying existing FTP Configurations. Within the FTP Configuration input page, there were specific sections to facilitate real-time validation of established FTP connections.
Low Fidelity Prototype
During this phase, I collaborated with the back-end engineer, front-end engineer, engineering manager, and product manager to determine the essential information needed for users to create FTP Configuration. We structured two distinct sections based on users' preferred download locations. The first section is the external location, and the second section is the internal Degreed file location.
Upon reviewing the list and conducting secondary research, I decided to add essential elements:
"Create" button
A list displaying the configured settings
"Delete" button
"Edit" button
I searched for existing UI designs and interactions, not only within the design system library but also within successful products currently in use within Degreed:
User Flow
I created a user flow. I met with the back-end engineer and front-end engineer to understand the steps of two types of users. I made two user flows: one for Client Provided, which is files to be downloaded to an external place outside of Degreed, and one for Client Degreed FTP, which is files to be downloaded to an internal Degreed file.
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
In this phase, I created all the screens within the user flow. I made sure user flow works for the users. I met with other designers to check if the user flow and design system are all consistent.
While all the other pages were confirmed to be used by all the designers, the list page was not confirmed due to the purpose of the card design. There was feedback that the list design (how the list looks with the section divider) should be included within the card design for consistency. However, because there were already 9 categories to be added per section, the categories did not fit horizontally in the existing list design. I couldn't add scrolling horizontally either when the list gets longer because internal users in Degreed that I talked to wanted to see the whole list at once. So I switched to a different design. I tried to find other list designs in Degreed other than the card list design; however, there were no other designs that I found other than the card design.
This is how the card list design in Degreed looked like:
User Testing
After confirming with the product manager and engineers on all the design, I started to make a questionnaire for user testing. By collaborating with a user researcher, I wrote emails to the clients, and the user researcher sent the emails out. I received 15 responses and conducted user surveys with 15 different clients from different companies in the span of two weeks. Here are the problems that users faced:
Connection Status
13 out of 15 users clicked on ‘Check the Status’ and took an average of 4-5 different tries to click on the refresh icon while only the icon was clickable. So I switched the design to combine the icon and the wording together. This was a new component for the design system, so I got approval from my design director who was working on the design system.
Number of Creation
8 out of 15 users asked how many they can create for FTP Configuration. After discussing with the PM and engineering manager, we decided on a maximum of 4, because the majority of users create a maximum of 3-4. So I added ‘__ out of 4’ to let users know how many they can add.
Hi-Fidelity Prototype
I finalized the whole design showcasing with the design team and to reporting team.
Creation process for ‘Client Provided’ FTP Configuration
Creation process for ‘Client Degreed FTP’ FTP Configuration
Editing existing FTP Configuration
Deleting existing FTP Configuration
Maxed out FTP Configuration list
Last User Testing
I have conducted 15 user testing one last time with the same clients. They were all able to successfully finish the task.