Empower Users in Crafting Their Ideal Workflow

Enhance monitoring and troubleshooting journeys for tailored experiences

Unito is a powerful workflow solution that links users’ favorite work apps and tools. What sets Unito apart is its unique blend of user-friendly design, deep integration capabilities, and two-way synchronization.

My Role

User research, UX Design, Product Design,

Team

Andrew Cianci, UI/Product Designer
Graham Mann, Product Manager
With Unito

Timeline

Nov 2022 – Feb 2023

Context And Business Opportunities

Unito follows a Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy, aiming to maximize the self-serve experience. This allows sales and customer success teams to focus on high-potential users rather than troubleshooting or guiding users through the product.

In the past, our product team prioritized a simple flow creation journey, inadvertently neglecting post-creation stages: monitoring and troubleshooting.

Business Opportunities

1. Identify blockers to conversion

We know the Aha moment happens when users see information starting to sync. However, syncing information doesn't necessarily mean the flow behaves as expected — which can lead to frustration and drop-off.

2. Enhance the end-to-end journey

While past efforts focused heavily on optimizing the flow creation journey, adjacent journeys (like troubleshooting, flow management, or iteration) received less attention — leaving room for improvement.

3. Reduce ticket volume for customer success teams

By making users more autonomous, we could free up time for customer success teams to proactively engage with high-potential accounts instead of handling low-value support requests.

Focus on Research Methodologies

I led the research process, defining the approach across three distinct phases: discovery, exploration through co-creation workshops, and evaluation through user testing — supported by the Product Owner along the way.

Discovery Phase Insights

Sources

→ Data analytics
→ Survey results (Most recent activity table)
→ Insights from previous research
→ User recordings
→ Feedback from customer support and sales teams
→ Chat analysis from Hubspot
→ 12 user interviews

Findings

Limited integration options

Key integrations lack advanced options, preventing users from building their ideal flows.

Misaligned information hierarchy

Displayed information doesn't always match users' mental models, leading to confusion.

Troubleshooting gaps

Basic troubleshooting needs are not fully supported, making error resolution harder.

Slow Test & Learn cycles

The resync phase significantly slows down the iteration process.

Inconsistent statuses

Status labels and behaviors are not always consistent across the product.

Hidden tools

Existing tools are not easily visible or accessible, limiting their usage.

Unpredictable defaults

Default behaviors lack clarity, making the system's logic harder to anticipate.

2 Main Design Tools Used For Prioritization

1. Ideation on pain points

We turned each pain point into a dedicated section and brainstormed possible solutions using sticky notes — one idea per note. At this stage, no idea was too bold or out of scope. The goal was to foster divergence and think beyond feasibility constraints.

2. Prioritization and initiative dispatch

Together with the PO and tech lead, we mapped the ideas on a simple Effort vs. Impact grid to guide prioritization. This helped us identify quick wins and high-value initiatives. We also flagged cross-squad dependencies — involving services like sync engine and connectors — and pitched those initiatives to be integrated into their respective roadmaps.

Crafting Solutions: The Five Key Elements

During this phase, we organized multiple work session to get aligned on suggested solutions.

Explore prototype

1. Explicit 'Activity' entry in navigation

Signaling users where to find monitoring and troubleshooting elements distinctly, avoiding mix-ups with settings related to the edit journey.

2. Implement a new status, 'retrying'

Enhancing predictability in syncing behavior by acknowledging Unito's multiple attempts before classifying a change as a failure.

3. Clear explanations for syncing issues

For every change Unito cannot sync, providing users with transparent reasons and potential resolution points.

4. Allow users to 'sync' one item at a time

Offering a significant time-saving feature. Previously, users could only trigger a full resync, a potentially time-consuming process depending on project sizes. The ability to only sync 1 item is a valuable time-efficient option for users.

5. Introduce item search by URL

Aligning with users' mental models for starting investigations more efficiently.

Evaluating Impact and Iterating for Success

Before initiating the implementation, we conducted a series of user tests involving both internal and external users, enabling us to make necessary adjustments.

An impactful outcome from internal user tests, predominantly involving customer-facing teams, was their strong advocacy for the entire feature implementation, believing it would significantly ease their work. This expectation was met during implementation.

After a month of progressive roll-out to gauge the impact on a new cohort, which showed neutral effects on the conversion rate, we decided to extend the roll-out to all our customers.

In the 6-month evaluation

Effective utilization of designed solutions

In the initial 6-month period, users demonstrated clear engagement with three main solutions: 203 items' searches by URL, approximately 1,650 users accessed the side panel for syncing issue explanations, and about 300 users utilized the sync one-item feature.

Partial impact on the activation to conversion rate increase

Following the feature's release in July 2023, we observed a rise in the activation to conversion rate. However, various factors may have influenced this trend.

Adoption by the customer-facing team

Challenges in ticket impact measurement

While the customer-facing team noted an overall decrease in ticket numbers, pinpointing the feature's direct impact is challenging. The decrease likely reflects a culmination of parallel improvements.

Stable NPS

Persistent resolution path finesse lack

Ongoing limitations in the resolution path hinder the design's full self-explanatory potential.

Next Steps

Usage analysis for hypothesis formulation

Dive into usage data to formulate potential hypotheses.

Introduction of micro-surveys for targeted feedback

Implement micro-surveys to gather focused feedback from users in the context of their monitoring and troubleshooting journey.

Keep feedback collection from customer-facing teams

Maintain regular feedback collection from customer-facing teams regarding user interactions and comprehension.

User interviews for improvement insights

Conduct interviews with active users to gather insights on potential improvements and reach out to non-users to understand their blockers.

Next Project

Reporter Without Borders

morgane.davy@gmail.com

Back to work

Empower Users in Crafting Their Ideal Workflow

Enhance monitoring and troubleshooting journeys for tailored experiences

My Role

User research, and UX design

Team

Andrew Cianci, UI/Product Designer
Graham Mann, Product Designer
With Unito

Timeline

Nov 2022 – Feb 2023

Observations and Problem Definition

Let’s begin by defining key terminology. Within the Unito app, a ‘flow’ refers to a connection between two tools, whereas a ‘workflow’ encompasses multiple interrelated flows.

In the past, our product team prioritized a simple flow creation journey, inadvertently neglecting post-creation stages: monitoring and troubleshooting.

Recognizing the need for balance and the analysis of existing data revealed a gap in features for tech-savvy and power users. They crave a clear syncing activity overview for effective troubleshooting and monitoring.

Our challenge: Enhance current features to empower users in monitoring and troubleshooting, aiming to reduce support ticket influx.

Focus on Research Methodologies

We divided the research process into three distinct phases: discovery, exploratory, and evaluation.

Gathering Data

During this phase, Graham (PM) and I split the work. Findings were consolidated both in Miro and Dovetail.

Sources

Findings

Troubleshooting Need

Users seek more human-readable errors and detailed troubleshooting content to reduce dependence on customer support.

Syncing activity overview's limitations

While the syncing activity overview is essential for confirming data synchronization post-flow creation, users don't view it as the optimal tool for troubleshooting.

Monitoring tools overlaps and inconsistencies

While monitoring or troubleshooting, users may encounter similar information using different tools or features, potentially leading to conflicting or contradictory data.

Better fit with users' mental models

When users encounter errors in their tools, they instinctively turn to Unito for answers. However, the app did not provide information tailored to our users' mental models.

Lack of predictability

Users misinterpret default behaviors as errors due to the Unito app's inadequacy in setting clear expectations for syncing actions.

Crafting Solutions: The Five Key Elements

During this phase, we organized multiple work session to get aligned on suggested solutions.

Explore prototype*

*this prototype has been implemented for a desktop experience

1. Introduce item search by URL

Aligning with users’ mental models for starting investigations more efficiently.

2. Explicit 'Activity' entry in navigation