You've Got Mail
Working at a startup is not just about designing brand new features with all the bells and whistles. There are times when the team needs to stay lean and move fast.
ORGANIZATION
7Geese
RELEASE
June 2019
SKILLS
Design Experiment
Design Strategy
UI Design
Keeping it old school
Moving the Needle
At 7Geese, we run smaller experiments along bigger projects. Being the lead designer for the Objectives team, I balance my priorities depending on a multitude of factors such as business and user values, amount of effort involved, delivery deadline and so on.
This year’s focus is on improving product engagement of managers. Engagement is calculated based on the number of select activities a user performs within 7Geese. We realized that managers are crucial to overall engagement since they connect executives to the rest of the organization and vice-versa.
In the survey that we launched, managers have selected goal setting, supporting and coaching as the most important parts of their role.
We sent a 4-part survey to the managers to better understand what activities they do on a regular basis. The findings help keep our experiment focused on critical components.
One thing we’ve identified is that managers don’t have great visibility with ongoing objectives progress of their employees. At least, we don’t have communication purposely built to highlight who’s doing well and who’s not. They are left to analyze the data we show in 7Geese and that can get confusing especially when they have several direct reports. Instead of building an entirely new feature to support that level of insight right away, we’ve decided to validate our hypothesis first through email.
Going Old School
Emails are crucial yet under-utilized form of communication at 7Geese. From the Objectives feature alone, we send two weekly emails. One is the summary, which shows important changes in objectives progress, and the other is a check-in reminder. Both emails have ~50% open rate, which is pretty decent compared to all other emails we send.
For this experiment, we’re adding a new bi-weekly email for managers. It shows which employees haven’t checked in to their objectives for 14 days or more. With that level of insight, we’re hoping to achieve the following:
Employees check in more frequently
Managers feel more empowered and find more success with 7Geese
It’s tricky to work with 7Geese emails since it’s one of the oldest systems implemented. I paired with our lead developer, Max, to identify limitations such as use of existing email templates and how much level of information we can surface.
Redefining Scope
The initial acceptance criteria listed that being able to surface the check-in history is already considered complete but I wanted to offer more user value. It felt like showing that information is just half of the solution. With Max’s help, I was able to identify which actions we can provide for managers.
In one afternoon, I worked with our lead developer to figure out how we can provide more value
We thought of maybe posting a message in their objective page but that felt too public – objectives are transparent to the entire company by default. We also played with the idea of scheduling a one-on-one meeting but that seemed too intense and complex since we also have to involve other product teams. We went through several ideas until we landed on a really simple solution, which is sending a check-in reminder email.
The logic behind email reminder mapped on a timeline
Check-in reminders already exist in our system. These weekly emails are set by the users themselves. Using this template speeds up our process and is the perfect complement for this experiment. Basically, we tell the manager which of their reports haven’t checked in to their objectives for 14 days or more, and give them the option to send a reminder to check in.
Recycling Materials
Since this is an experiment, I opted to use existing email templates so we can ship this faster. The design consists of two emails; first is the manager reminder and second is the check-in reminder for the employees.
The manager check-in reminder shares the same email template as the weekly emails
The cards highlight which objectives haven’t been updated in a while. The manager can choose who they can send a reminder to. Once they interact with it, the employee will receive a check-in reminder email. The manager will then be directed to the employee’s objectives overview page in 7Geese.
The design is the same as the weekly check-in reminder email. The only difference is the copy in the headline.
These emails present a negative connotation especially for employees who aren’t checking in regularly. To combat that, I crafted the copy to focus on the positive outcome of checking in to an objective. On top of it, both manager and employee can opt out from the email reminder entirely.
Final Thoughts
I wrote this to highlight creativity in technical limitation as well as being able to practice restraint in design. It’s not always about designing cutting-edge interface or slick micro-interactions. Sometimes you just have to work with what you already have.
It was a pleasure to collaborate with our lead developer, Max. Despite the increase in scope, he still supported the project’s updated direction. It’s amazing what we can achieve by focusing on the value we bring to our users.