CASE STUDIES
myUL Master Gate Keeper Study
Overview
Product team leadership determined that seamless onboarding was an area of priority for the myUL portal. The goal of seamless onboarding is to help new users quickly become proficient and confident in using the software, which can lead to increased user adoption and customer satisfaction.
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Seamless on-boarding often involves providing users with clear instructions and tutorials, as well as offering interactive and personalized onboarding experiences, such as guided tours or interactive demos.
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When an organization first signs up for myUL a Master Gate Keeper (MGK) is required to help configure permissions and invite/approve users for their company. The initial setup of company permissions and training of MGKs was identified as a major pain point for users. This then was identified as a priority for the team to address.
Client:
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Underwriters Laboratories (UL)
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Role:
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UX Team Lead
Research Approach
Following proven UX mythologies, we continually aim to education the UL Product teams on our process. The customer experience map is part of the Research Diamond in the double diamond design methodology.
What is the myUL Portal?
myUL is the secure customer facing portal for UL’s Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) business. Users are able to access their UL quotes, orders, project files, product information, documents, and services. myUL itself is not a paid service, but rather exists to facilitate interaction with customers throughout the TIC process.
Discovery Research
Lead by the UX team and working together with the Product Manager and Product Owner, we documented a current-state task flow for myUL use registration to determine pain points. We then documented the current-state information architecture for users of the permissions space and documented technical dependencies to understand the impact of any proposed changes.
Long Range Planning
This allowed us to from a plan on how we plan to iterate different epics that addressed the need for seamless onboarding.
Key Problems to Solve
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Complex Permission Setup - The current permission structure allows you to build for every single possible combination. This flexibility creates unnecessary complexity for most of our users
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Wayfinding is Difficult - Information is duplicated throughout several tabs and pages, causing confusion as to where to find things. This increases the time it takes for users to find what they are looking for
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Tasks are Not Intuitive - Completing tasks require high cognitive load as users are relying on their memory. Users also do not know what type of input the system is expecting from them
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High Support Requests - Difficult to find or obtain guidance in real-time. Users must locate and arduously sift through and decipher help articles, which requires a lot of effort on their part to get answers
Complex Permission Setup
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Original Experience
Permission creation process is too flexible, there are too many options which increases cognitive load and becomes difficult to manage
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Tab structure leads users to believe they can switch between content which is not the case
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Users who do not understand the task at-hand do not have an easy way to get answers
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The attention of a user is diverted from assigning content as they have the option to browse previously created groupings
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.Information which should be readily available is hidden in tooltips, requiring more effort from users to understand the permissions they are assigning
New Experience
Simplify the task of permission creation and provide help during the process
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Breaking the process up into steps guides the user and makes the process more manageable
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Eliminate subgroups (location, content, user). Saving groups of content for later use is unnecessary. Focus should be on assigning content
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Provide descriptions in a static manner to eliminate the additional step a user needs to take to understand the content they can assign
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Provide contextual support so users can better understand the task at-hand without having to divert their time to seeking out help and support
Way Finding is Difficult
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Original Experience
Users currently have too many layers of decision-making and customization options which are overly complex and overwhelming to manage
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User management lives outside permission management even though they are intertwined
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There are duplicative tabs to navigate through
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There is a list of users within the company structure and a list of users on the left-hand nav, both presenting different views of the same information which is confusing to an MGK
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.Labels such as “company structures” or “content groups” don’t make sense to a user. Actions are also unclear, such as the CTA “create”
New Experience
Consolidate pages and controls to create a more intuitive, cohesive experience
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Consolidate user management into the respective organizations and permissions they belong to
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Merge related tabs together to reduce confusion and cognitive load on users
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Rename labels so that they are clearer to users
Tasks Are Not Intuitive
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Original Experience
User management is separated from permission management despite them being interdependent
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Users who are pending access to myUL are divided into incoming and outgoing requests
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User access request notifications do not convey urgency as blue is used as an informative status
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Invites are divided into four different statuses even though users only need to see the pending ones
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There is no way to resend an invitation, users must go through the invite process again
New Experience
User Management will live with the organization and permissions they are associated with
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MGKs can manage their users, access requests and permissions all from the organization level
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Incoming and outgoing access requests are consolidated into the same view
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MGK and GK can easily resend invites if they expire without having to go through the invite process again
High Support Requests
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Original Experience
MGKs are slow to respond to user access requests, have trouble navigating admin tasks
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No first-time/ongoing set up support
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Unclear how to request the transfer of MGK role
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MGKs do not realize they have pending access requests
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User access management responsibility is not effectively communicated prior to someone assuming the MGK role
New Experience
Provide more context to users of the roles and responsibilities associated with MGK
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MGK agreement broken up into three steps to reduce cognitive load
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MGKs must understand that they are also managing user access
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.Lead text effectively summarizes the key information about role and responsibility of MGK without them needing to read the actual terms
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.Mandatory MGK onboarding tour will be presented after completing MGK agreement in its entirety
Company Page Structure
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Original Experience
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Left hand navigation is missing other company settings
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User access located outside of the company structure page
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Active user list located outside of the company structure page
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Status column unnecessary
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Limited search capability, most users have one company structure
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No lead text, user may not understand purpose of the page
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Only MGK email is revealed, no name is provided
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Single action hidden within a three dot menu
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"Company Structures" isn't clear to users
New Experience
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Consolidated Left hand navigation menu
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Greater search capabilities
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Roll users and access requests into the organization which contains their permissions
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Brief page summary
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Surface Master Gate Keeper name
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Unhide actions
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Renamed "Company Structures" to "Organizations"
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Removed the status column as MGK and GK only see active company structures
Interactive Prototype
Click image to launch interactive prototype
Conclusion and Outcomes
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Overall, the UX processes that lead to improving the Master Gate Keeper experience in myUL were valuable. It allowed us as a UX team to educate and evangelize proper UX methodologies and discovery exercises with Product Managers and Product Owners, increasing the overall knowledge and maturity of the team. We not only came up with an informed, collaborative solution but we also were able to rapidly test with users and make small iterations prior to development. The result was drastically better experience for the user and the simplification of the permissions management opened the door to later features to improve the myUL user on-boarding experience.
