System-Wide Usability Study of 10-Year-Old SaaS Product

PROBLEM

High churn sounded an alarm. The user experience research squad had a hypothesis that drop-off happening early in the experience signaled a poor user experience. Additional customer feedback indicated poor UX was a major driver of churn. The user research team launched a study to investigate. 

RESEARCH

Qualitative usability tests of all live features with target users who had never used them before. 

IMPACT

⚡️ UX improvements across the product targeted key drivers of early churn:

1. Decreased adoption friction — Activation, or the entire process of making an account, was overhauled and shortened, including moving an account OAuth step. Additionally, a previously unskippable pop-up asking users to download a browser extension was eliminated. 

2. Simplified onboarding  —The product transitioned from lengthy, instructional YouTube videos that could not be skipped to short, embedded contextual help that could be accessed later on in the experience. 

3. Simplified core flows — One product team, Create, used the findings to simplify all the core user flows of their product area. Another team that worked on the Scheduling product prioritized issues with the core flows their team owned. 

4. Improved System-Wide UX — The Designers carefully integrated visibility of system status (e.g., confirmation feedback) into their future designs so users no longer wondered if they did something correctly or if the product was actually working.

5. Coached Associate UX Researcher — Carey, the Associate UX Researcher, learned about the Jakob Nielsen usability heuristics and Gestalt principles and how to incorporate them into recommendations for usability improvements.