Direct mail is an unfamiliar marketing method in times when digital marketing is mainstream. The communications have to be designed, printed and posted, and the process can be chaotic and complex to organize.
Optilyz developed a web app to manage this process and remove the constraints associated with it.
Our main goal was to give customers full control of their direct mail initiatives and eliminate the difficulties that the fragmented direct mail process entailed.
To achieve this we put emphasis on providing customers with the resources and information they need to understand the channel and on creating an intuitive booking process that enabled customers to configure campaigns without assistance.
Customer feedback was a key component of the design process that helped us understand their level of awareness about direct mail, their priorities and their struggles with it. I conducted customer interviews but also regularly received valuable insights from the sales and customer support teams.
This was an on-going effort from which we identified pain-points and critical questions to answer.
I worked to anticipate the customer questions during the on-boarding process, making the most relevant information and materials easily accessible.
Unexperienced users needs
Existing customers needs
I took advantage of blank states to translate them into informative screens.
I participated creating a knowledge base writing articles and designing collateral help materials.
And designed a concept for a contextual help system that would prioritize topics related to the user goals and would always be available without interfering with the user task. Due to business priorities this project didn't progress beyond the concept stage.
Giving users the information they needed to make informed decisions was one of the key areas of focus. During user research sessions we listened with special attention to the words and descriptions that the customers used, as part of the effort to keep the language and subject specific terms plain and user focused. We also include iconography to increase recognition and ease the process of reviewing the configuration for their campaign products.
As the number and size of Optilyz customer grew, the desired campaign setups became more complex. The platform used to allow to send 1 mail piece per campaign (for example, a postcard or a letter) but some customers started to request deliveries of several pieces together (for example a postcard and a letter together in an envelope).
We adapted the campaign booking flow to allow customers to organize campaigns in which to send several mail pieces to their customers.
In collaboration with sales and business stakeholders we analysed the most common campaign setups and identified the main use cases we should design for.
Our 2 main areas of focus were allowing users to combine and configure mail products according to their needs and allowing customers to upload designs and define discount codes.
I run a team ideation workshop and from there I developed design concepts that we then used as stimuli for user research.
We tested 2 different prototypes in parallel. We started doing internal usability tests with colleagues and moved on to more elaborated research sessions. We dismissed design concepts that weren't working, iterated on the best ideas and tested them again.
One of the key learning points was that customers valued confidence over speed. Making sure they haven't missed anything and being confident that the information had been processed correctly, were common patterns we observed during user research.
We tried to reduce complexity, simplifying the booking flow and giving prominence to the principal tasks while making non-required options available in an non-intrusive way. An example is the voucher screen which used to be a completely separate step in the process. We made the decision to integrate it with the visuals upload.
We used a one thing at a time approach to guide users through complex tasks, breaking down the tasks into smaller steps so the users could focus on a single action.
Usability testing was an essential part of the process but on large projects it can be difficult to test all the details. In those cases it is important to identify the critical journeys first and focus on increasing confidence on those before release.
Whether it is in meetings, workshops or kitchen conversations talking to the colleagues who have frequent contact with customers will always bring good UX insights. Likewise doing internal usability tests worked well for us to identify some usability problems before reaching out to customers.
During spontaneous conversations or review meetings it is easy to want to respond quickly to change requests or suggestions, but very likely any change will have an implication somewhere else, even if it is not immediately obvious. I've learned that often it is necessary to hold off and take time to thoughtfully consider changes and identify their implications.
