Flexible & high performing invitations
Starred
Starred help candidate centric companies collect feedback. Their invitations are the highest performing in the industry. They asked me to research and design a new composer which was more user friendly, flexible while maintaining the high response rates clients expect from them.
Background
Starred relies on email to distribute feedback surveys to respondents. With an average response rate of over 30% this has always been a success for them. Users are able to set up email templates themselves. The previous composer was built over 5 years ago and, next to feeling outdated, was lacking functionality.
Research
My research for this project encompassed the following three items:
I started with a SaaS/competitor research. There are a lot of email composers around and I wanted to look how they are built, what features and customisation options they offer.
Next to that I talked to internal users on how they reflect on the composer, what feedback they get from customers and sales leads and what their own opinion is in terms of feature we should offer
Lastly I talked to users on what they think about the current implementation, what they felt could be better and what was going wrong.
I combined all of the learnings from these steps into an affinity map. This is a great tool for seeing the big picture as well as the small details that make a feature.
Ideate
To ideate potential solutions, I referred to the good old pen and paper. This almighty tool has stood the test of time. And I’m a big fan. Although I don’t use it often, it is great for rapid iteration.
I selected two of my favorite options and using more recent technology, I recreated them in low-fidelity wireframes.After all, this is the better way to present options. Next to that it helps to do one more refinement before presentating.
Test
Based on feedback from internal users, I created one of the options into a prototype. Using a stoplight method, I observed 6 users while they completed small, simple tasks.
The biggest learning was that users dind’t understand why an invitation template had to be linked to a survey. Users wanted to create invitation templates and use them accross multiple surveys. This was a classic case of monkey see, monkey do. It had always been this way, and we didn’t challenge it. I adjusted the designs and prototype and went back to some users to validate them one last time.
Development
I worked very closely with the Front End team to spec out any missing interactions that were not covered in the high fidelity mockups. I conducted a UX review of each front-end ticket that was implemented to ensure it was aligned with the designs before it went live.
Conclusion & Takeaways
The fresh coat of paint gives the invitation composer a new modern look that matches the app overall look & feel. Next to that, the composer manages offers new customisation options while still delivering on feedback emails that get responses.
Response rate have not dropped below the previous benchmark of 30 percent
User satisfaction with emails and email composing has increased 0.8 points (on a scale of 1 to 10)
Niels Joop Rozemijer, 2023
