Rhythm

Project Overview

RhythmOne is a media company that acquired Rhythm NewMedia - a mobile video company. My work spanned primarily the campaign manger tool and mobile application, and after the acquisition expanded to include video website and VPN software

I joined Rhythm NewMedia before the acquisition as a UI/UX Engineer and the only designer in a company of over 30 engineers and 2 product managers. I supported design across every aspect of the business and was responsible for leading UX and UI across key parts of the application side of the platform.

Year

2013

Role

UI/UX Engineer

Methods & tools

Heuristic Evaluation, Competitive Analysis, Design, User Testing - Balsamiq, HTML and CSS

Platform

Web Browser

Deliverables

Report, Personas, Wireframe and Hi-Fidelity Prototypes

Product Design Process

I established a design process that fused UX methods and NPD phase-gate product development process, specifying the deliverables for review, decision making, and as input into the next design activity.

User Research

Before Rhythm NewMedia even hired a UI/UX person, a release of the platform had been implemented based on blue-sky concepts executed by the engineering team. The platform was created without any usability testing and had little consideration for the technical and product limitations on the scope of work. Conducting interviews with key stakeholders helped me to understand the work they do and issues they face in order to leverage this information as part of potential solutions.

Research

Personas

Conducting interviews with our primary users - AdOps managers -allowed me to understand their roles, day to day operations and how they used the campaign manager tool. This was an opportunity to also uncover pain points they experienced while using the tool.
From this interview data I created a set of persona profiles of the stakeholders that would guide design decisions.

research

Cognitive Walkthrough

After collecting the recordings from the user interviews, I conducted a cognitive walkthrough sitting with each member of the advertising operations team to observe and understand their role in context of the current system, problem areas and where they saw improvement opportunities.

Research

Heuristic Evaluation

Afterwards, I conducted a Heuristic Evaluation to synthesize the pains identified with the system itself. The report identified UI problems, ranked the severity and ease of fixing.

Download Full Report

research

Competitive Analysis

Based in part on the information gathered from users, I conducted a competitive analysis of other campaign management tools, most of which the team had used at previous companies. Usability heuristic, technology and features / functionality were the baseline criteria I established to asses the design and development efforts.

Design Definition

With an understanding of the customer, their values and desires, I set out to establish the design solution to further their goals. This consisted of ideation and planning sessions with stakeholders such customers of the platform, and creating user flows and prototypes to guide engineers during implementation.

DESIGN DEFINITION

Feature Planning

During planning sessions important features were identified, usage scenarios discussed and capture in diagrams, with all stakeholders involved.

DESIGN Verification

User Flow

As part of the design process, I created user flows of the platform to help engineers understand how the overall functionality of the features worked.

DESIGN Validation

Prototype

I quickly mocked up some low fidelity wireframes to gather feedback and validation from the AdOps team, engineering and the users on the overall layout, structure and proposed interactions of the interface.

DESIGN VALIDATION

Usability Testing

I conducted usability testing sessions with our primary users to validate whether the new designs would solve their problems. This involved establishing a time with users to walkthrough the mockup with a set of tasks from a script I wrote including a scenario for reporting tool of the platform.

During the sessions, I observed how they interacted with the prototype and set up the reports. The usability session revealed that it was easier to set up a new report due to the grouping of related fields.

development

Hi-Fi Prototype

Using HTML and CSS are created functional front-end only prototypes to simulate the interactions of the actual proposed design.

This first version was a high concept to establish a visual direction and get buy-in all from stakeholders.

development

Development

I worked very closely with the Front End team to spec out any missing interactions that were not covered in the high fidelity mockups. I conducted a UX review and continued testing to ensure it was aligned with the designs before it would eventually be deployed to users.

Results

Developing the front-end along side an engineer allowed for the concept prototype to be presented and tested with stakeholders, and subsequently lead to the development of the platform tool.
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Some key takeaways from this project are:
Focus on main features for MVP. A focus on the main functionality allowed me to address the immediate issues the users had while optimizing their work process.

Rhythm Campaign Manager