summary
mission
Transform the company from a sales-led to a product-led growth (PLG) approach while preserving the features that created strong product-market fit with small business owners and event professionals
my role
Account for existing functionality, current and future pain-points, and user priorities while creating an entire new design system, developing all screens and states across all viewports, researching and developing best practices, and working alongside our engineers to take the best possible user experience through to production.
Despite initially being the sole designer in these efforts, eventually, I would also mentor a Junior Designer, Sarah Ng.
impact
With the re-design of this product through specific pain points like the proposal builder and the introduction of a Dashboard for internal use and CRM, there was a significant impact on the success of the company and the modernization overall of the software.
client
Curate
services & skills used
User Experience Design
User Interface Design
User testing & research
End-to-end design
Innovation & iteration
Curate had figured out the perfect audience.
Over the course of 6+ years, Curate had successfully established itself as software that helps florists manage their products, proposals, and clients. But what would be the next evolution?
When I was brought on as the sole and Lead Designer, the goal was simple but the task was huge: pivoting from a sales-led model to one that could speak for itself.
We didn't have to start from scratch.
Where the legacy product had succeeded:
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Finding and excelling in the needs of small business owners in the floral industry
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Entering the event industry at large; beginning to be able to match the needs of caterers as well as florists
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Providing florists and small business owners comprehensive software for their all-in-one needs
Where it needed help:
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An architecture & non-existent design framework that wasn't conducive to scaleability
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The entire user interface - despite having the functionality, the product was clunky and difficult to use
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A reliance on salespeople to walk the user through the software; a lack of intuitive design, forcing already busy small business owners to have to take time to be fully onboarded
The small-business owner is at the heart of this product.
Throughout my time at Curate, this thought was never far from my mind. The goal was not simply to tastefully refresh a product from a more modern stand-point, it was always to center the very real people using it.
I had the pleasure of conducting User Research with these very people; one of many initiatives placing empathy at the fore of everything my team was building.
the before
Curate offered a wealth of functionality, but you might not know that on first glance.
The user had Calendar functionality, Event management, Rentals (of items and services), a Product library (where all inventory could be kept and managed), Tasks, Purchases (for inventory ordering), a Contact Book for customer management, Forms for prospective customers... the list goes on.
Not to mention, there was a Proposal Builder that allowed the user to select from several canned proposal design options for wedding and other event florists to send out.
When they said all-in-one software, they meant it.
As an incredibly lean team of two (myself and the sole Product Manager), we touched nearly every corner of this product.
We added new functionality, amended old ideas - I created the skeleton of a Design System where there simply hadn't been one, we created rules and documentation and clarity.
There are nearly too many things to mention, so I will focus on two:
the dashboard
The inclusion of a Dashboard was crucial in the simplification of a complex product.
There was a massive amount of iteration.
With so many features, it made sense for the user to have a home base. It also felt important that it was as low a cognitive load as possible - which meant including the most important information while still maintaining a good deal of eye rest and simplicity.
The problem to be solved here ultimately had to do with priority: what does the end user need to see most?
The end result was the use of widgets. In different versions, an Events calendar widget seemed most important - especially when it came to the caterers. The user could eventually prioritize Tasks, if it was an employee; or Reporting, if it was a manager or owner.
Future functionality suggested eventually the user could customize this themselves; however, in the interim, it was up to us.
What went well:
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Functionality
Following ongoing conversations and customer interviews surrounding these designs, we were able to ascertain that there was a match with their expectations.
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Contributions to solidified design system
The continued efforts towards mid-level fidelity allowed me the chance to continue to solidify the direction of Curate's updated design UI (i.e. rounded edges, playful but modern, etc).
What most needed adjustment:
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Early UI
In earlier iterations, it simply wasn't matching my own expectations for the software to look modern and on par with the comparative analysis I'd done.
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Spacial difficulties
An ongoing question - how to prioritize widgets and non overwhelm the user, given how much data is likely to be included? How to build for future widgets and functionality?
Although we continued to iterate and reflect the desires expressed by our users, we landed on a version for MVP that prioritized what was most important.
In the end, the focus was on friendly design, relevant information for the recent history and the near-future, and an overall sense of order where there was once an onslaught of information.
the proposal builder
The other major undertaking had to do with the Proposal Builder: a space for the user to create and send beautiful proposals, with styled themes provided for them.
The primary goal of the update to the Proposal builder was providing WSIWYG capabilities.
I created several new themes, allowed for hover-click-to-edit functionality where there had never been, drag and drop, and many other modern features.
We saw a huge increase in satisfaction from our users: all of a sudden, the Proposal editor was easy and quick to use, and integrated with everything else. A user could add Contacts and Products that were in relationship to the rest of their account with Curate; they could manage Contracts and other important documents, and they could even accept payments.
Perhaps most importantly, they could extract real value: Proposals that would win them sales, with all of the real-time data embedded in the shareable document itself.
the after
These design updates, along with countless others, made a huge difference in the lives of the real users we spoke to in great detail about their experience with the software.
What went well:
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Ease of use
In the case of the Dashboard and the Proposal Builder, users found it vastly easier to navigate through the software, use all of its features, and maximize efficiency in sending out Proposals and gaining new Leads.
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Improvements & streamlining of overall design
Although the designs weren't perfect, they were a marked improvement over the legacy product. They offered a modern, easy-to-use alternative to an older industry-specific software.
What was not quite perfect:
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UX hopes vs. implementation
This project was a massive undertaking: not only was it a challenge to determine how to better the look and feel and user experience, it was also crucial for cross-team collaboration. Some things, like a true WSIWYG experience, had to be made hybrid - a Preview and an Editor. It required flexibility and patience throughout.
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The UI itself
I was a young designer tasked with an entire product, more or less alone. I think although I am proud of the impact I made, there are many small touches I think could've made it even more intuitive and modern!
in conclusion
By the time I left Curate mid-January of 2023, many of these updates had gone live. Users were very happy with the improvements to the software, and we saw a huge percentage of conversions across multiple industries - it was no longer solely software for florists, but for Event Professionals.
I learned so much in this work. The project emphasized the user, first and foremost: user experience is not just a concept, but the real-time effect that comprehensive software like this can have on people's businesses and, ultimately, lives.