0-1 design of a marketing automation feature that improved the work efficiency of marketers.
Design Shipped
Company: Tenon is a SaaS Marketing automation and management Software.
Overview: Marketers have to manage multiple campaigns at a time. Marketing automated journeys are workflows that automatically deliver personalized messages across multiple channels, ensuring each customer receives relevant content tailored to their needs and interests.
Team
Hybrid Product Team
Agile
Scrum
My Role
Product Designer ​
UX Researcher
Facilitator
​Duration
1 year
Tools
Figma
LLM's
Problem Statement
Introduce the journey builder flow in the Tenon product for marketers to automate their daily tasks.
What I did
Conceptualized and designed the journey builder feature by owning the 0-1 process.​
Process
The messy but successful process: I faced 3 major challenges and several problems along the way.​
Glimpse into my Figma File
Challenge 1: No defined user requirements and design specs
Quick Discovery with LLM's
Problem: No starting point
Solution: To save time in a super fast-paced environment, I leveraged LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini AI, and Claude AI to quickly gather insights related to current competitors and existing automation features in the market.
Market Research with LLM's
Studying Existing Features
Impact: This resulted in a comprehensive research repository and a glimpse into the recent market trends.
Building the Concept
Problem: Limited time for user research
Solution: To define user insights further, I conducted quick interviews with users, product managers, and internal marketing teams.
Impact: I was able to quickly conceptualize the automation feature from the user's needs in a week.
Prioritization Strategy
Problem: Too many user insights!
Solution: Even though I had the user needs, I still didn't have clarity in terms of what exactly the company was planning to release. Eventually, I grouped and listed down all the potential features in an Excel spreadsheet and shared it with the product managers and the development team.
Impact: Significantly improved cross-functional collaboration, and the entire team was able to start visualizing the feature. I was able to successfully balance the user needs with the business requirements and the technical constraints. Additionally, this also helped the product managers write sprint stories for the developers.
Challenge 2: Changing timelines and priorities in a fast-paced environment
Design process I had planned
Change in design process midway
Design for Faster Releases
Users (Marketers) "We need to activate the journey without any errors."
Developers "Sorry we can't develop error prevention in this release :( "
Problem: Version release deadline preponed by a month for an interested client!!!
Solution: Instead of panicking, I broke down the release versions even further to overcome technical constraints for faster releases, while collaborating with the developers.
V1: Active button enabled for first version with a warning popup
V2: Disabling the Active button till all Journey errors are fixed
Impact: Simple yet useful designs for maximizing profit margins.
Using GenAI for Wireframing
Problem: No time for ideation!
Solution: I used GenAI tools to quickly ideate flows, which were further refined.
Impact: Met release deadlines and improved efficiency by 60%
Challenge 3: Discrepancies in design and development
Defining Design Components
Problem: No defined UI
Solution: Defined design components for this feature and contributed to the design system.
Impact: This resulted in an efficient developer handoff.
Feedback with Videos and Design Specs
Problem: Limited time for technical feedback
Solution: I connected with the developers on a weekly basis but made sure to record small design changes throughout the week with Loom videos and design specs.
Dev feedback with prototype vidoes
Design Prototype Videos
Impact: Saved meeting time by 2 hours each week and reduced back and forth with designs.
Detailed out design terminologies and scenarios for the developers.
Some complex flows I worked on
Core Layout
-
Showing and numbering multiple cards on the canvas
-
Moving around on the canvas.
Adding Actions
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Actions are sets of commands like send email, opt in contacts, etc.
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Designed flows for adding, editing, and deleting action cards.
Activating a Journey
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Handling journey activation with broken flows.
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Updating an active journey.
Editing and Deleting Rules
This flow came with the complexity of how other branches are affected when a rule is deleted or changed.
Impact by the end of 1 year
70+ user insights documented
Improved design efficiency by 60% with AI tools.
50+ flows designed
This feature helped secure 3 client deals
Feedback from my manager
Apurva is everything a designer should be. She is a planner. Apurva was given a project that lacked the necessary information on features and priorities. Identifying this, Apurva created a planning document that considered all possible features, then worked cross-functionally to determine the priorities and release structure. This planning document became vital to planning for the Product Management, Design, Engineering, and QA teams.
She takes ownership. Based on the qualities above, it was an easy decision to have Apurva lead design on one of our most vital feature experiences. From the onset, Apurva has led the research, design, and execution of automated workflows in our product. This project is complex and has spanned months. Apurva has worked with every department at Tenon to ensure the project is executed at the highest standards.
Simply put, I am confident that Apurva will succeed at every step in her career, and elevate those around her.
By Eric Peter, Head of Product Design at Tenon
I learned to take ownership and lead end-to-end designs in a fast-paced environment by leveraging AI.
That's me!
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