Streamlining the QA process and improving company-customer communication
Role: Lead Designer
Partners: 1 Developer
Project goal: Streamline the quality assurance process to minimize time spent, decrease error rates, and improve communication with customers.
Project context
Who is Dynata
Dynata (previously Research Now SSI) is a B2B market research company dealing with a wide variety of customers from big names such as Verizon, to small independent users.
Understanding the process
Currently their system requires a QA team to manually check surveys before approving them to go live. This testing is done for each line item in a market research survey.
Through interviews with the QA team, I discovered their process looks something like this:
As you can see, there was quite a bit of time wasted by clicking in and out of multiple applications, and there is a high chance of error as the tester does not know specifics of the client’s exceptions and the form questions are ambiguous.
My goal is to streamline their process to look something more like this:
TURNING PROBLEMS INTO SOLUTIONS
To improve the process, I first had to know exactly what was wrong with their current flow. Through user interviews, and a content audit I identified some areas that needed improvements:
Dashboard
OLD DASHBOARD
Problems
Too much information on dashboard, cells are truncated and not all information is useful at this level
Looks old and tired, does not fit the current design system
NEW DESIGN
Solutions
Prioritized essential info to reduce clutter
Added quick ‘assign me’ button
Highlights associated line items for quick approval
Line item page
OLD PAGE
Problems
Difficult to access targeting criteria
Difficult to scan questions requiring manual input
Missing: timer–users were using a 3rd party timer adding complexity to their workflow
Missing: approved client exceptions–leading to error prone QA
Under-utilized feedback input–clients are wondering why their survey was rejected
NEW DESIGN
Solutions
Showcases associated line items for quick approval
Clear and complete targeting information
Questions rephrased to all ideally be “No” with Color highlighting “Yes” for easy scanning of potential problem areas
Fixed-scrolling reference sheet to see client exceptions and additional information
Warning messages to help with writing client feedback if a line item is rejected
Integrated timer to reduce reliance of 3rd party applications
Achievements
Minimized error rates by making the form easier to scan and providing missing information such as client exceptions full targeting information.
Created scalable design to handle variety of customers by adding client information as well as associated line items.
Improved company-customer communication by providing auto-generated error messages instructing customers how to fix the errors.