Overview
Storyline LLC is a customer experience shop that delivers insights to organizations based on customer feedback. I spearheaded the design and development of a platform aimed at streamlining the manual Storyline LLC process of interviewing and collecting customer feedback and transforming that data into insights. The platform enabled effortless creation and organization of participants, assignment of demographics, and seamless printing of quote cards. Leveraging Ruby on Rails, I ensured the application was not only feature-rich but also designed responsively to provide a seamless user experience across all screen sizes.
Problem
Before the development of the platform, Storyline LLC faced significant challenges in efficiently managing participant quotes. The process was cumbersome and lacked a centralized system to store and categorize quotes. Manually creating and printing quotes was time-consuming and hampered the team’s efforts to scale production. The customer deliverables were 100% on paper and presented during a walkthrough. Customers desired to view their insights in the future in a digital way.
Research
I conducted extensive research, including stakeholder interviews with the Storyline team, and discussions with the CEO. Understanding the pain points and requirements of various team members during their current process helped me establish a clear roadmap for the platform’s development. At the heart of the process was quote cards, a physical representation of a quote from a customer participant in a study. These quotes are tagged with demographics, and given a type of fact or feeling. These quotes are printed and categorized and displayed on large storyboards to represent a holistic story. Hence the name Storyline.
Design
In order to best communicate and work through flows with the Storyline staff I decided that the best fidelity would be a mobile prototype. This choice was made by empathising with the people on the team and understanding that this would be right level of abstraction to facilitate these conversations. This also provided a way for me to easily test the direction of the design and the usability of the application simultaneously.
Once the workflows and design direction was resonating with the staff we moved into building the application responsively. Accessibility of the platform was going to be essential no matter what screen size the team was on.
Managing Quotes
To enhance quote management, I introduced a tagging system that enabled participants’ quotes to be categorized based on themes or topics. Users could easily apply tags to quotes, simplifying the process of searching and organizing testimonials. fields to accommodate varying data requirements.
Quote Card Printing
To fulfill the marketing team’s needs, I integrated a feature allowing the generation and printing of quote cards. Users could customize the design and layout, resulting in professional-looking quote cards for promotional materials.
Diagraming
In order to mimic the customer deliverables we created a digital diagram to map the quotes using the Storyline method aligning facts with feelings.
Testing
Throughout the development process, I conducted rigorous testing and gathered feedback from stakeholders and users. Iterative improvements were made to refine the user experience, ensuring a seamless and intuitive platform for all users. This was particularly around the process of printing quote cards to be the exact dimensions and fidelity of the previous process.
Results
Streamlined Workflow The platform’s user-friendly interface and automated features streamlined the quote collection and organization process, saving significant time and effort for the team. Increasing the teams ability to generate quotes for a project by over 50%.
Positive User Feedback Stakeholders and users expressed high satisfaction with the platform’s design and functionality, noting the simplicity of the participant management and quote categorization processes.
Conclusion
The development of Storyline LLC’s participant quote management platform proved to be a game-changer, streamlining operations. The successful implementation provided a robust and scalable application, while the responsive design provided a seamless user experience across all screen sizes. The platform’s positive impact on team efficiency and customer satisfaction demonstrated the power of user-centric design and technological innovation in achieving business success.