.png)
This case study showcases the product I helped design and improve for VectorSolv, warranty administration and sales startup based in Ottawa, ON, Canada.
The following sections outline my process as a product designer, and features some designs and prototypes.
VectorSolv experienced rapid growth with frequent product updates and client acquisitions. However, a critical aspect requiring enhancement was the onboarding experience for distributors (pivotal figures responsible for selling VectorSolv’s policies) to their Admin Dashboard (the platform which provides distributors with a point of sales system for their policies).
Given their significant role in revenue generation, optimizing their onboarding process would be key to the company's longterm success.
For this feature, there was an existing process in place; distributors would be sent links to the onboarding form by an administrator, they would complete the form and immediately be granted access to the dashboard where they would have to navigate to the policies hub to find the sales links.
Evaluating the existing distributor onboarding process revealed several key issues:
After several stakeholder interviews, I found the team’s initial hunches on pain points with the system aligned with some of the new system’s needs
Approval System and Pre-Approval Access
Enable distributors to sign up and access limited platform features while awaiting approval.
Customizable Onboarding
Empower administrators to configure onboarding steps, including document signing and uploading.
Simplified User Experience
Ensure distributors encounter a straightforward platform interface post-approval.
After brainstorming current pain points, and understanding how these pain points touched the desired features and needs from stakeholders, I found there were 4 main features that would need to be improved in order to increase onboarding and policy sales.
Flip through the tabs below to peek at the questions I asked myself during this product discovery and brainstorming phase, and the solutions.
How will administrators configure what information is required by distributors before they can be approved, and once their information has been reviewed and accepted, what permissions will said distributors be granted once they’ve registered to the platform?
What is the experience for a distributor going through the onboarding process? How will they be guided through the varying steps? How will they review their information, or know where to go once they've submitted the form?
How will administrators "approve" distributors when distributors are pending review? What if an admin decides they want to change the permissions automatically granted to said distibutor upon approval? What happens when an admin denies a distributor?
How will administrators configure what information is required by distributors before they can be approved, and once their information has been reviewed and accepted, what permissions will said distributors be granted once they’ve registered to the platform?
Once I’d run through the ideas with the product team, I started creating some rapid low fidelity mockups so we could all better understand where these improvements would fit into our current system.
The tabs below show each feature's wireframes and quick examples about what key features I was paying attention to when designing them.
The main adjustments to this feature included the need for a new option to “require administrator approval” which would trigger an additional step when configuring the link so administrators would be able to grant a new set of permissions pre and post approval of a distributor on the dashboard. I also designed a quick form builder for gathering extra information of varying formats.
The onboarding process only had a few major changes: adding a new dynamic form populated with what was configured by the onboarding link as “additional information”, and adding alerts for the distributor to explain the approval process. The main goal with this experience was to keep it as simple and usable as possible for distributors.
The approval system originally was aimed to be an intelligent process that would check each distributor’s documents tab and compare those documents to what was asked of the distributor to upload upon application - however due to scope and timeline compromises, we opted for the first version to simply alert the administrator evaluating the distributor of what they should look for on the distributor’s page before making their decision.
Originally, this page had the necessary information regarding distributors, but now with the new task of verifying a distributor based on their uploaded documentation, signatures, etc. - I had to find a new way to display (and manage) this information while also keeping the UI clean. There was also emphasis on an area on each distributor’s page where they could easily access policies and their “sales links” to encourage sales as early as possible.
For the first version of this product, we opted to keep the communications between distributors and administrators relatively simple and use our existing email system - so I outlined the general use cases and their copies.
While initial improvements to the approval process, link configuration, onboarding flow, and communication were up-to-scuff, the enhanced distributor landing page experience fell short.
A compromise was reached to maintain simplicity and clarity by implementing a visual progress checklist, ensuring distributors could track their status and required actions seamlessly.
After solidifying the low fidelity mockups, the next step before presenting the new feature to the technical team was to create the first version of documentation that developers can dive into once they’ve been briefed on the scope of the presentation.
Given their significant role in revenue generation, optimizing their onboarding process would be key to the company's longterm success.
After presenting the designs and new product features to the technical team, once initial questions were answered and holes were sufficiently poked, I moved quickly to creating the high fidelity mockups that developers would need. Using our design system, I translated sketches to pixel-perfect designs that developers could refer to when working.
Below, I show a select few high-fidelity wireframes, however when handing over Figmas to developers, I always include any empty/warning/success states they'd need, and comment on any ambiguous functiality to ensure requirements are documented for later reference when testing.
After presenting the designs and new product features to the technical team, once initial questions were answered and holes were sufficiently poked, I moved quickly to creating the high fidelity mockups that developers would need.
Using our design system, I translated sketches to pixel-perfect designs that developers could refer to when working.
With time constraints, testing our designs and product was limited to testing internally on other members of the team. We wanted feedback as early and as quickly as possible to identify what had been missed by those that already know the inner-workings of the product.
User interviews were performed in-person around the office to those with limited technical background but that would be using the configuration system or showing distributors how to onboard themselves.
These users provided enlightening feedback regarding assumptions we made about the frequency of use of features like the quick copy link for policies, or how frequently the upload signature form would be used.
This feature was larger than was originally anticipated - the scope had to be adjusted several times to be released on an appropriate timeline, however, the final result was a solid first step at improving the product’s user satisfaction with the onboarding experience.Moving forward, elements could be improved to further streamline the sales aspect of this flow - the todo list could be used to not just update the distributors on the status of their application, but prompt them to start selling more policies, showing them which are most relevant to them and integrate sales into the distributor’s initial experience on the platform.
Further monitoring should be done on the results of my design effort to show the number of distributors that have joined and have been retained (ie. have made sales recorded via VectorSolv’s platform) compared to the original product.