Admiral

Dashboard & Onboarding Redesign for a Desktop SaaS Platform

Timeline
‍3 months

Tools
‍Rhino, Illustrator, Woodshop, Pen & Paper, Kitchen

Methodologies
‍Rapid prototyping, usability testing, iterative models

Role
‍Architect/Product Designer

Recovering lost ad revenue for digital publishers.

Digital publishers lose more than $15.8B in revenue in 2019 due to adblockers, an increase of almost half the $11B lost in 2016, (OnAudience). Yet while over 25% of users in the US use an adblocker,  76% of users also agree that publishers have the right to earn revenue from published content.

The Client

Admiral is a SaaS platform that focuses on Visitor Relationship Management –– creating relationships between publishers and their visitors to encourage them to pay for the content through: ad blocking, consent products (GDPR, CCPA) and/or subscriptions.

The Task

Redesign the onboarding experience as well as create a master dashboard to increase user engagement and upsell new potential users.

Timeline
Feb-March 2020

Tools
‍Figma

Platform
Desktop

Methodologies
‍‍UX Research, Strategy, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing

Timeline
‍4 weeks

Tools
‍Figma, InVision, Pen and Paper

Methodologies
‍UX Research, Strategy, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing

Platform
Desktop

Recovering lost ad revenue for digital publishers.

Digital publishers lose more than $15.8B in revenue in 2019 due to adblockers, an increase of almost half the $11B lost in 2016, (OnAudience). Yet while over 25% of users in the US use an adblocker,  76% of users also agree that publishers have the right to earn revenue from published content.

Our Client

Admiral is a SaaS platform that focuses on Visitor Relationship Management –– creating relationships between publishers and their visitors to encourage them to pay for the content through: ad blocking, consent products (GDPR, CCPA) and/or subscriptions.

Our Task

Redesign the onboarding experience as well as create a master dashboard to increase user engagement and upsell new potential users.

Jump to Solution

Understanding Admiral's Current State

To begin tackling a foreign industry (to our team), we implemented a multi-faceted research strategy including domain research, user and employee interviews to inform our approach to the project and fully understand the current state of the platform.

Understanding Admiral's Current State

To begin tackling a foreign industry (to our team), we implemented a multi-faceted research strategy including domain research, user and employee interviews to inform our approach to the project and fully understand the current state of the platform.

Evaluating the competition

The clients were well aware of their competitors, but had done little research as to what their strengths and weaknesses were. In order to supplement our standard market competitive analysis, we conducted a visual competitive analysis of dashboards and onboarding.

The goal was to help us evaluate the current state of Admiral’s platform, while paying special attention to what metrics were shown and how they were organized.
‍

Current Employee Experience

In order to validate our assumptions, we spoke to the employees that directly deal with the clients and the dashboard –– head of sales, the head of customer support, and even had the opportunity to speak to the CEO.

Were there any pain points from the company’s side that would impact the client experience?

“5% of our users make up 95% of our usage. We want to improve that.”

-Dan Rua, CEO Admiral

Current Client Experience

Admiral’s energy is currently targeted towards bringing in clients––but once the clients were sold and had to use the tools:

How aware were they about the platform’s full capabilities?
Admiral was not conveying its full value & not straightforward
Due to lack of visibility about other products, users all thought they had a full picture of Admiral’s capabilities, when it was just the products they use.
‍
What was their motivation, if any, for using the dashboard?‍
The dashboard was a middleman
4 out of 5 users spend minimal time logging into the platform, and when they do it’s primarily to export data to other platforms.

Customer support was Admiral's primary appeal
The majority of users were perfectly content with Admiral as a platform, but this was only because customer support was their eyes and ears.

Our Opportunity

Marketing and attracting clients were not Admiral’s problem––it was the product experience. If Admiral’s goal is to convey their value through the platform, while upselling products, how does a client get there? Accounting for both the user and the company’s perspectives, we visually mapped out a client user flow from their first interaction with Admiral sales or their website, to becoming a potential best friend (using all three products).

Admiral needed their platform to effectively communicate their value as a horizontal VRM service so that their users can optimize Admiral’s services without relying on customer love support for guidance.

Our Design Principles

Based on employee interviews and business goals, these were the top priorities.

Straightforward

Present information in an easily digestible, but polished manner

Human-Centric

Users are more than just statistics––retain a human touch to provide an engaging and approachable product.

Self-Guiding

Provide users with the confidence to adopt the platform into their workflow with minimal external support

The current onboarding process equates to a simple sign up flow

When navigating through Admiral’s website, every click leads you to the same sign up screen, and after inputting basic information, you’re taken to an empty dashboard. What happens now?

02


01

Admiral’s current dashboard functions solely as a static analytics board

Several competitors utilize the dashboard as the “hub” of all configuration and analytics information, with several interaction capabilities.

Speaking to Clients


How aware were they about the platform’s full capabilities?

What was their motivation, if any, for using the dashboard?

“The platform is very accessible because I can email Bryan (customer support)”

-Kip, OMSFT

Speaking to Clients

Admiral’s energy is currently targeted towards bringing in clients––but once the clients were sold and had to use the tools: ‍

How aware were they about the platform’s full capabilities?

What was their motivation, if any, for using the dashboard?

“The platform is very accessible because I can email Bryan (customer support)”

-Kip, OMSFT

Our Findings

01

The dashboard is currently a middleman.

4 out of 5 users spend minimal time logging into the platform, and when they do it’s primarily to export data to other platforms.

02

Admiral is not conveying their value

Due to lack of visibility about other products, users all thought they had a full picture of Admiral’s capabilities, when it was just the products they use.

03

The current platform is not straightforward.

Users found the site walkthrough that the Admiral team provides to be helpful, however, they felt that it would be difficult to understand the platform without this walkthrough.

04

Customer support is Admiral’s primary appeal.

The majority of users were perfectly content with Admiral as a platform, but this was only because customer support was their eyes and ears.

Key User Patterns

5 out of 5 users

relied on customer support for problems

4 out of 5 users

inherited the platform from a predecessor and had to learn it through a second round w/ customer support

1 out of 5 users

knew about Admiral’s other products

5 out of 5 users

thought they knew what Admiral does*

*when probed further, it was clear this was not the case––their knowledge was limited to only the products they were using

“The only thing preventing me from not using new products is lack of knowledge about them…it's not easy to get a snapshot of all the products that Admiral has”

-Kip, OMSFT

Customer Love was a multi-touchpoint for a client to reach the final stage.

Admiral assumed that the mid-tier clients were our target user, because they wanted to convert all non-premium clients into low touchpoint clients––when in reality all tiers were using customer support as a crutch.

01

02

03

04

First, they are introduced to the client through the demo and tagging process

They are called again for troubleshooting

Called again when a client changes personnel running Admiral

The only route to currently reach the promised land of BFF.

Our Opportunity

Admiral needed their platform to effectively communicate their value as a horizontal VRM service so that their users can optimize Admiral’s services without relying on customer love support for guidance.

Broadened Scope

The onboarding was initially an afterthought for the client when in reality it was essential for conveying the company’s value.

Given that tight turnaround time, we wanted to properly optimize and direct our efforts by splitting into 2 teams, onboarding (2 designers) and dashboard (3, including myself).

Ideating Solutions

After creating divergent solutions for the onboarding and dashboard, we tested out these concepts with prospective users, who valued educational guidelines and customization abilities. Based on feedback from our guerilla tests, we conducted a SWOT analysis to determine if and where ideas can converge.

From there, the dashboard and onboarding were fleshed out around three cases each. I led the design of the dashboard and managed the wireframing efforts to ensure a clean and consistent UI pattern.

Proposed Features

01

Streamlined Navigation

We restructured the navigation to integrate the product configuration pages with their corresponding dashboards, and the Quick Manage feature provides shortcuts to the most used tasks.

Proposed Features

02

Comprehensive Guidance

Explanations and guidance are provided wherever possible, in the form of informational hover messages, a virtual tour, and an onboarding process integrated with key tasks

Proposed Features

03

Product Visibility

Increased exposure to Admiral’s suite of products through alert cards, display of unused products through locks or grayed out elements, and recommended articles about optimizing the products.

Proposed Features

04

Personalized Metric Display

The key metrics highlighted promote Admiral’s positive value, and users can organize and customize dashboard metrics to their liking.

The Evolution

Streamlined Navigation

We restructured the navigation to integrate the product configuration pages with their corresponding dashboards, and the Quick Manage feature provides shortcuts to the most used tasks.

Comprehensive Guidance

Explanations and guidance are provided wherever possible, in the form of informational hover messages, a virtual tour, and an onboarding process integrated with key tasks.

Product Visibility

Increased exposure to Admiral’s suite of products through alert cards, display of unused products through locks or grayed out elements, and recommended articles about optimizing products.

Personalized Metrics

The key metrics highlighted promote Admiral’s positive value, and users can organize and customize dashboard metrics to their liking.

The Wireframes

Testing with Users

After testing with six of Admiral's clients, existing and prospective left with an effective understanding of Admiral's value and found the overall experience to be much more intuitive and personalized.

4.8

ease of dashboard navigation*

92%

likely to recommend Admiral

17%

increase in user satisfaction

One place to configure, manage, and organize.

A streamlined tool that grants users the autonomy to personalize their experience while maximizing exposure to Admiral’s products.

Want to see more?

Meal KitBon AppétitrSourceMuseum + OfficeCOVID-19Digital Handcraft

© Anisha Kalyanswamy 2020

LinkedIn/ Email / Resume

Back to top
Back to top

← All Design

Fintech Startups →

Previous Project

fightCovid

Next Project

rSource

anisha kalyanswamy

architect / designer / photographer / food lover