Because we already had a version of the ThruText messenger, myself and another product designer started by conducting user interviews to validate our assumptions about the changes we thought needed to be made. We believed the messenger could be faster to use if we reduced confusing navigation, made important nav items sticky, showed more conversations on the page, and made the experience more responsive on mobile.
We looked to our personas throughout the process to make sure we were building solutions that solved problems for our users.
Along the way, we conducted various rounds of user tests to make sure we were building solutions that would enable volunteers to send as many messages as possible leading up to the election. The tests helped us validate our decision to reduce the number of navigation bars on the Messenger mobile experience, and helped us confirm that users did not need to be able to access their profile or top level navigation while sending messages.
The Messenger final product streamlined users' ability to perform critical actions, like collecting data and using recommended replies to respond quickly. It also aligned the Messenger to the design system we'd established on the admin side of the product, creating a more seamless experience moving from one side of the tool to the other.
Across the Messenger and the Admin side of ThruText, we paid special attention to building a great mobile experience. Political campaign workers and volunteers are often extremely busy, and campaign staff need to be able to trust that their digital tools will work for them on all devices, and on whatever devices their volunteers might have on hand.
I started by working with colleagues from sales, support and leadership to identify and map the business needs for the site, and to envision what a smooth journey for future and current customers might look like.
I then created an MVP version of the site by wireframing out critical pages. And after rounds of feedback, I continued to iterate and move on to higher fidelity wireframes that more closely aligned with our goals for the site experience.
The users for the marketing site were both our potential and current clients, and our internal team. The version of our marketing site we were replacing was extremely barebones with less than 10 pages, and had limited functionality for the sales team to capture leads, track referrals or schedule demos.
The site also wasn't serving potential clients. We weren't showing crucial information like pricing, and had no easy way for clients to sign up for an account without first scheduling a demo. We also didn't have a clear path for current clients to get to login to our applications or submit a support ticket, and folks were often ending up in the wrong place.
With the wireframes and feedback from stakeholders in hand, I started locking in styles, colors and content. I was responsible for the new site architecture, illustrations, icons, and contributed to a large amount of the content/copywriting.
Because we had no developer resources for the marketing site, I chose to build the site in Webflow, which gave our team increased flexibility and gave me the opportunity to easily customize the site.
The site was able to scale with the organization through its busiest time - the 2020 Election Cycle, meeting the needs of clients, partner organizations and our internal team.
At the core of GetThru's brand is real people sending real messages and making real phone calls for causes they care about. I created a bespoke illustration style that centers real people using GetThru's tools.
After receiving the initial request from the BFP team, myself, the product manager and a lead engineer got together to better define the problem statement and discuss possible solutions. We then put together an overview document for the Biden team to review and provide feedback.
We maintained a feedback loop with the stakeholders from the Biden for President team, and iterated on a solution that would not only meet their needs, but would also be useful to the rest of our customers.
The shipped version of the Bulk Reassign feature allowed the Biden Campaign and numerous other clients using ThruText during the 2020 Election to easily sweep conversations at the top level of their texting campaigns.
I've documented all design processes to make finding what you need easy for current staff or new hires.
Through documentation, overseeing our design system and brand guide, and through our resource library, our team has created a culture of design within the organization. Staff can easily access what they need in our shared drive to create quick, on brand decks or grab other things like approved client photos, logo files and more.