Learning customer names is vital to success for professionals. It helps them to develop meaningful client relationships. The incumbent solution, LinkedIn, suffers from numerous UX challenges for this use. I designed an application to better address this niche use case.
LinkedIn primarily serves as a networking platform for professionals. Accordingly, its information architecture is designed to support traditional social media functionality. LinkedIn has clear usability issues for use as a platform for memorizing profiles. It places significant emphasis on discoverability through the news feed and suggested profiles rather than customized groups of connections. As a result, users will experience friction when changing rapidly between different connections during the learning process. Profiles are exclusively displayed in totality rather than with more focused, contextual information. This friction is demonstrated below.
“Names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” - Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
According to a survey of 3,000 adult consumers conducted by AgilOne, 70% of consumers expect personalization in their buying experiences. The research reveals that customers view personalization as a direct representation of the brand or service. For client facing professionals, these findings demonstrate the need for tools to help them to form human connections.
I conducted a survey within the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to gauge whether potential users resonate with the intended functionality of the application. Individuals polled were enrolled at the Gies College of Business, placing them in the target demographic. The results show that 87.5% of respondents felt that in previous work experiences, it was important that they had a working knowledge of their coworkers/clients. Additionally, 75% of respondents reported interest in using a mobile application to help learn this information. These findings show that users have meaningful pain points around this use case and are underserved by existing solutions.
Examining the user interface elements of similar consumer applications was a helpful first step in identifying the design requirements. Two key projects I took inspiration from were Quizlet and the Apple Music mobile application.
Quizlet provides functionality for memorizing information contained in predefined study sets. They take a skeuomorphic approach to modeling traditional assets like flashcards in a digital format. This insight prompted me to implement a similar approach. The layout below provides affordances for previewing the study set elements which I also adopted.
The information architecture of the Library system in Apple Music above influenced the way I thought about designing Connection Groups during prototyping. Songs can be identified based on a hierarchy of metadata, for example, Artist > Album > Song. This was helpful for me in creating a logical system to help users explore their data. Other core interface elements in my project including swipe to delete originate from my observations of Apple Music.
How might we streamline the process of gaining a deep knowledge of your professional connections to enable better customer experiences?
I started the design process by defining the functionality requirements required to help users achieve these objectives. Afterwards, I created general wireframes translating these features into a visual interface. For clarity, I’ve defined the core entities below.
Connections - A familiar term from Linkedin, this represents each person the in the users network
Connection Group - Generated by the user, it is defined as a set of related Connections belonging to the same organization
List View - Users can access the list of Connection Groups they have created within this screen, which functions as the home page
Tools View - This screen is accessed by selecting a group via the List View; it presents a preview of the Connections within the group along with the learning tools
When a new user downloads NamePro, they will be greeted with a welcoming graphic prompting them to begin the onboarding process. Next, users will import their data. They are asked to log in via LinkedIn to enable data access through the API. Using the API dramatically simplifies the development process from a technical perspective.
Guiding users through the creation of their first group is another step in the onboarding sequence. After logging in, a comprehensive list of the organizations their Connections are affiliated with is displayed. Individual Connections can be accessed to be grouped by company. Filters such as alphabetical, interaction frequency, geography, and date added help to reduce aimless scrolling.
These screens include all of the navigation, customization, and management functionality required to support the learning experience.
Upon opening the application, users are met with the List View contained in the home tab. This will display a list of the user generated Connection Groups. The normal flow is to select a group to access the Tools View which contains learning tools. Users are also able to update/delete their Connection Groups from the List View.
The navigation screens also include a tab for creating new Connection Groups via a familiar sequence described in the Onboarding section. On the opposite side is the profile tab. This includes user analytics along with basic settings and account management.
The learning interfaces are the most important element of the application because this is where users will spend most of their time. Taking inspiration from Quizlet, users are able to choose between practice options like multiple choice, flashcards, and fill in the blank. These are traditional formats by design; they’re likely to be comfortable and familiar for users. To add to the immersion of these screens, the background changes to a blue gradient. This change serves as a visual cue to users that this is the primary focus.
We envision a tool that helps to make working relationships more personal by empowering professionals to learn more about their clients
Before creating the high fidelity mockups, I had to determine whether to use an existing design system or create a custom solution. I decided that working from the iOS design system had a number of advantages including accelerating the design and future development process. NamePro incorporates iOS design system components like typefaces, searchbar, lists, filters, buttons and switches. Some custom elements were required such as cards and practice tools.
User onboarding experience and initial Connection Group creation
Interface navigation including Connection Group deletion
Different learning tools: multiple choice, fill in the blank, flashcards
Access basic user analytics and account administration
After creating the high fidelity prototypes, I conducted informal interviews with the survey participants to get feedback. My takeaway from these conversations was that the product design is directionally correct in achieving the objectives of the project. Prospective users surveyed believe that this interface represented a usability improvement compared to LinkedIn for learning names of customers and clients. The two quotes from this process stood out in particular.
"Starting a new career in consulting is like drinking from a firehose; having an easy way to learn all my clients' names could now be one less thing to worry about.” - Interview Participant
“Business roles are all about making friends. I struggle to remember names and I genuinely think this would help me maintain relationships.” - Interview Participant
Moving forward, there is plenty of opportunity for iteration on the designs. The high fidelity mockups should be tested in a formal user interview process to identify usability challenges and additional functionality requirements. Identifying key metrics for success is another essential step from both a design and product management perspective. I believe that this project addresses a meaningful problem and has the potential to help real professionals if developed into a startup.
Finally, I’d like to address the naming. No pun intended.
Coming up with an apt product name is always a fun challenge when working on a project. One recent trend among technology startups is eponymous naming. “Fast” is working on rapid e-commerce checkout solutions and “Genius” helps users become music experts by explaining the meaning behind song lyrics. In this spirit, I decided to call the product “NamePro” because it helps you become a pro at knowing client names.
