Envisioning a help center that's actually helpful
LEAD PRODUCT DESIGNER 2021
Envisioning a help center that's actually helpful
LEAD PRODUCT DESIGNER 2021
Envisioning a help center that's actually helpful
LEAD PRODUCT DESIGNER 2021
Overview
In my role as the manager and design lead for the Digital Expertise pillar, our primary focus was to enhance help experiences both within and outside our product ecosystem. With insights from prior research sessions we identified a recurring challenge for our Expert network: the arduous task of accessing pertinent information and completing daily tasks to serve customers was a significant bottleneck, leading to prolonged service times.
Despite the presence of our help panel capability as an entry point for experts to search for support, its utilization remained disappointingly low, hovering around a mere 20%. In response, my project manager and I committed ourselves to a comprehensive exploration of the Expert help journey. Our aim? To streamline processes and uncover avenues for revolutionizing how our experts access support. Our vision extends towards the implementation of a more intuitive, proactive help system, poised to mitigate operational costs while empowering our experts with seamless access to the assistance they require.
Impact
Disambiguated an untapped problem space and delivered a 1-3 year strategy that exposed the current hurdles for Expert support and identified capabilities to achieve faster help experiences
Designed a help system that is flexible, scalable and intuitive, in turn unlocking opportunity for a 'digital expert' to support evolving business needs
Worked across ~8 Expert support teams to uncover process inefficiencies and streamline content management
Gained leadership buy-in to deliver capabilities to support DIY Expert help that enhanced business needs through effective storytelling grounded in user insights
Early insights
Experts would resort to Google or another Expert to get trusted answers.
Early insights
Experts would resort to Google or another Expert to get trusted answers.
Early insights
Experts would resort to Google or another Expert to get trusted answers.
20%
<
opened the help panel
15%
<
performed a search
Why is the Help Panel an Unreliable source for Expert support?
performing a search was difficult, keywords often not leading to the right results, or having to sift through vast amounts of content to maybe find information that related to the need, slowing down task completion
content was often wrong/outdated, which led to a distrust in the information
Why is the Help Panel an Unreliable source for Expert support?
performing a search was difficult, keywords often not leading to the right results, or having to sift through vast amounts of content to maybe find information that related to the need, slowing down task completion
content was often wrong/outdated, which led to a distrust in the information
Why is the Help Panel an Unreliable source for Expert support?
performing a search was difficult, keywords often not leading to the right results, or having to sift through vast amounts of content to maybe find information that related to the need, slowing down task completion
content was often wrong/outdated, which led to a distrust in the information
search results
article page
Vision
Design a 1-3 year strategy to improve the Expert support system and seamlessly fits into the Experts workflow via Help Panel, reducing time to serve the customer, and in turn increasing expert efficiency that supports our business metrics
Vision
Design a 1-3 year strategy to improve the Expert support system and seamlessly fits into the Experts workflow via Help Panel, reducing time to serve the customer, and in turn increasing expert efficiency that supports our business metrics
Vision
Design a 1-3 year strategy to improve the Expert support system and seamlessly fits into the Experts workflow via Help Panel, reducing time to serve the customer, and in turn increasing expert efficiency that supports our business metrics
Identifying opportunities
Working across ~8 teams to gain a holistic view of Expert support needs & identify opportunities for experience improvements
Through research methodologies, workshops with internal teams, and interviews with Experts we uncovered top friction points in the Expert day-to-day workflow where they sought help. Below are a few key insights.
Identifying opportunities
Working across ~8 teams to gain a holistic view of Expert support needs & identify opportunities for experience improvements
Through research methodologies, workshops with internal teams, and interviews with Experts we uncovered top friction points in the Expert day-to-day workflow where they sought help. Below are a few key insights.
Identifying opportunities
Working across ~8 teams to gain a holistic view of Expert support needs & identify opportunities for experience improvements
Through research methodologies, workshops with internal teams, and interviews with Experts we uncovered top friction points in the Expert day-to-day workflow where they sought help. Below are a few key insights.
workshops
interviews
industry insights
Insight 1
Search is ‘good enough’, but lacks precision
Compared to Google, our search performed ok, but Experts felt that certain articles should be more relevent or information they found on Google were most relevant.
NEED: Elevate top answers & identify critical search features
Insight 1
Search is ‘good enough’, but lacks precision
Compared to Google, our search performed ok, but Experts felt that certain articles should be more relevent or information they found on Google were most relevant.
NEED: Elevate top answers & identify critical search features
Insight 1
Search is ‘good enough’, but lacks precision
Compared to Google, our search performed ok, but Experts felt that certain articles should be more relevent or information they found on Google were most relevant.
NEED: Elevate top answers & identify critical search features
Insight 2
Too many tools to access help resources
Experts had multiple windows open, making it hard to jump between tasks and answer questions promptly. Job Aides were the most useful resource and were lengthy PDFs with nested content, making it hard to find situation-related information
NEED: Reduce the amount of out-of-product resources
Insight 2
Too many tools to access help resources
Experts had multiple windows open, making it hard to jump between tasks and answer questions promptly. Job Aides were the most useful resource and were lengthy PDFs with nested content, making it hard to find situation-related information
NEED: Reduce the amount of out-of-product resources
Insight 2
Too many tools to access help resources
Experts had multiple windows open, making it hard to jump between tasks and answer questions promptly. Job Aides were the most useful resource and were lengthy PDFs with nested content, making it hard to find situation-related information
NEED: Reduce the amount of out-of-product resources
Insight 3
Content management inefficiencies causing work-arounds
There were around 8 teams contributing to Expert support content with no framework for writing content. As new resources were being identified, teams had different processes for releasing content to Experts, causing Experts to create work-arounds in order to find information quickly
NEED: Design a CMS that can flex to different content types and work with support teams on implementing a framework
Insight 3
Content management inefficiencies causing work-arounds
There were around 8 teams contributing to Expert support content with no framework for writing content. As new resources were being identified, teams had different processes for releasing content to Experts, causing Experts to create work-arounds in order to find information quickly
NEED: Design a CMS that can flex to different content types and work with support teams on implementing a framework
Insight 3
Content management inefficiencies causing work-arounds
There were around 8 teams contributing to Expert support content with no framework for writing content. As new resources were being identified, teams had different processes for releasing content to Experts, causing Experts to create work-arounds in order to find information quickly
NEED: Design a CMS that can flex to different content types and work with support teams on implementing a framework
To see more indepth insights
To see more indepth insights
To see more indepth insights
Business Impact
We concluded that content management, process inefficiencies, and search taxonomy created a bottleneck for Expert support, leading to higher operational costs for the business.
Business Impact
We concluded that content management, process inefficiencies, and search taxonomy created a bottleneck for Expert support, leading to higher operational costs for the business.
Business Impact
We concluded that content management, process inefficiencies, and search taxonomy created a bottleneck for Expert support, leading to higher operational costs for the business.
Goal
Reduce time spent searching for answers by
50%
~
Landed solutions and strategy
Hypothesis 1
Design a scalable system
By focusing on fixing the Content gaps and restructuring the way content is presented, Experts will find the answers quickly, building trust for the Help Panel - AND it provides a foundation for the capabilities to create a Digital Expertise for Experts.
Hypothesis 1
Design a scalable system
By focusing on fixing the Content gaps and restructuring the way content is presented, Experts will find the answers quickly, building trust for the Help Panel - AND it provides a foundation for the capabilities to create a Digital Expertise for Experts.
Hypothesis 1
Design a scalable system
By focusing on fixing the Content gaps and restructuring the way content is presented, Experts will find the answers quickly, building trust for the Help Panel - AND it provides a foundation for the capabilities to create a Digital Expertise for Experts.
Design articles to break down into Content Snippets that feeds Results page
Design articles to break down into Content Snippets that feeds Results page
Current Experience
Design filters by content type, not article type
Design filters by content type, not article type
To see more detailed solutions for this hypothesis
To see more detailed solutions for this hypothesis
To see more detailed solutions for this hypothesis
Hypothesis 2
Redirect Expert behavior and free up leads
By enhancing the existing model to incorporate domain expert queries we can begin to accomodate for situation-related questions, rather than just product-related, which addresses the specific needs domain experts use the help panel for & the way they ask questions, resulting in answering the questions while building an understanding for when to escalate to a Lead or Manager
Hypothesis 2
Redirect Expert behavior and free up leads
By enhancing the existing model to incorporate domain expert queries we can begin to accomodate for situation-related questions, rather than just product-related, which addresses the specific needs domain experts use the help panel for & the way they ask questions, resulting in answering the questions while building an understanding for when to escalate to a Lead or Manager
Hypothesis 2
Redirect Expert behavior and free up leads
By enhancing the existing model to incorporate domain expert queries we can begin to accomodate for situation-related questions, rather than just product-related, which addresses the specific needs domain experts use the help panel for & the way they ask questions, resulting in answering the questions while building an understanding for when to escalate to a Lead or Manager
Solution Examples
Solution Examples
To see detailed solutions for this hypothesis
To see detailed solutions for this hypothesis
To see detailed solutions for this hypothesis
Hypothesis 3
Proactive guidance & personalization
By rethinking the way “Help” shows up to our Experts before they actually search, we can build confidence by suggesting contextual answers and content based on what “Experts like them…” or “Customers that you’re helping..” are asking or looking at in a way to shift from reactively providing help (e.g. via Search) to proactively guiding the customer.
Hypothesis 3
Proactive guidance & personalization
By rethinking the way “Help” shows up to our Experts before they actually search, we can build confidence by suggesting contextual answers and content based on what “Experts like them…” or “Customers that you’re helping..” are asking or looking at in a way to shift from reactively providing help (e.g. via Search) to proactively guiding the customer.
Hypothesis 3
Proactive guidance & personalization
By rethinking the way “Help” shows up to our Experts before they actually search, we can build confidence by suggesting contextual answers and content based on what “Experts like them…” or “Customers that you’re helping..” are asking or looking at in a way to shift from reactively providing help (e.g. via Search) to proactively guiding the customer.
Solution Examples
Solution Examples
To see detailed solutions for this hypothesis
To see detailed solutions for this hypothesis
To see detailed solutions for this hypothesis
Strategy & roadmap execution
Translating our plan to leadership and across the organization to gain buy-in for the year
In order to build empathy for the Expert support experience and gain buy-in for our plan for the Help Panel, I created user profiles based on the interviews with Experts of the 3 biggest pain points. I outlined 3 real scenario, walked the audience through the current experience, and then showcased how the Help Panel improvements would address these gaps by piecing together our solutions into a prototype. The videos below also served as a means for my team to circulate with partners & stakeholders who were not in attendance.
Strategy & roadmap execution
Translating our plan to leadership and across the organization to gain buy-in for the year
In order to build empathy for the Expert support experience and gain buy-in for our plan for the Help Panel, I created user profiles based on the interviews with Experts of the 3 biggest pain points. I outlined 3 real scenario, walked the audience through the current experience, and then showcased how the Help Panel improvements would address these gaps by piecing together our solutions into a prototype. The videos below also served as a means for my team to circulate with partners & stakeholders who were not in attendance.
1. Switching domains (or new expert)
Following Intuit processes & standards
1. Switching domains (or new expert)
Following Intuit processes & standards
2. Supporting returning expert (or new expert)
(re)Learning the platform & tools
2. Supporting returning expert (or new expert)
(re)Learning the platform & tools
To see prototype
To see prototype
3. Freeing up managers & leads
Building an Expert help repository
3. Freeing up managers & leads
Building an Expert help repository
To see prototype
To see prototype
Our release approach
Now
Low-hanging fruit
We identified immediate enhancements that do not require tech overhauls, including new tools, while we prepare a foundation for a flexible system, and shipped 3 features in the first quarter
Now
Low-hanging fruit
We identified immediate enhancements that do not require tech overhauls, including new tools, while we prepare a foundation for a flexible system, and shipped 3 features in the first quarter
Now
Low-hanging fruit
We identified immediate enhancements that do not require tech overhauls, including new tools, while we prepare a foundation for a flexible system, and shipped 3 features in the first quarter
Next
Execute on contextualization
These features and enhancements required us to work with our support & technical teams to restructure content and overhaul the system
Next
Execute on contextualization
These features and enhancements required us to work with our support & technical teams to restructure content and overhaul the system
Next
Execute on contextualization
These features and enhancements required us to work with our support & technical teams to restructure content and overhaul the system
Beyond
Identify & tackle new problems & inovation
As we build and test our previous releases, how can we plan for future innovation utilizing new insights
Beyond
Identify & tackle new problems & inovation
As we build and test our previous releases, how can we plan for future innovation utilizing new insights
Beyond
Identify & tackle new problems & inovation
As we build and test our previous releases, how can we plan for future innovation utilizing new insights
Get in touch
SAMANTHA HOY | 2024
Get in touch
SAMANTHA HOY | 2024
Get in touch
SAMANTHA HOY | 2024