xneelo - Managed WordPress

Find out about my product design process that covers company and customer needs, personas, competitor analysis, defining solutions, rapid prototyping, testing program, reporting and proposed next steps.

My Role:

UX Designer

My deliverables:

• Competitor analysis
• User research
• Personas
• Userflows
• Wireframes
• Prototypes
• UI design
• Product training videos
• Moderated & unmoderated testing
• Reporting on feedback, etc...
  

Duration:

Sep 2018 - Sep 2022

Multiple teams:

12 members in Vancouver 
16 members in Cape Town

Product status:

Alpha - Oct 2019
Beta - Dec 2020
Launched - May 2021

What are the business requirements?

• We want to create a modern, responsive control panel
• The plan is to have a new Manage WordPress product that will be the cornerstone for the new control panel
• Use the Managed WordPress and control panel as a gateway into the international market
• The company would like to target new entry-level customers

Competitor research

User Research

Findings:

• People want a website to look professional
• People don't understand basic hosting terms
• Most people abandoned their attempt to build a site
• People think WordPress is only for blogging
• People don't think about the underlying WordPress technology
• The benefits of WordPress make sense to advanced customers, not to entry-level ones

Unexpected Findings:

• We assumed the population knew WordPress
• People had a lack of understanding of WordPress.
• Hard to contextualise the differences between WordPress, themes, domains, and mail

Personas

What are our customers needs?

• Customers want to access new markets
• They’d like a professional online business
• They don’t want to waste time maintaining the website
• They want to focus on growing their online business
• Creating a site must be easy 

How do we meet our customer & business needs?

Ideation Phase

• Brainstorm sessions
• Team discussions
• Formulate a proposed solution

Proposed solution

Design phase

• User journey
• Xneelo blocks
• Starter sites
• Product overview

 

Xneelo block

• WordPress provides a wide range of default blocks
• These blocks provide a new way to create page layouts in WordPress
• We decided to build custom blocks to support our entry-level customers
• Customers can use blocks to create, rearrange and edit content
• Each block has settings that allow you to change alignment, colour, and spacing
• These blocks are connected to make pages, which then create the starter site

Starter sites

• Entry-level customers can select a starter site during onboarding
• Customers can rapidly get a website up
• Starter sites are website templates that are easy to use and edit
• It allows customers to focus and evolve their online business
• They are a differentiator in the SA market and align the business internationally

 

Product Overview

User testing

Alpha & Beta Testing:

Unmoderated surveys
Moderated usability tests
Gather and sort feedback
Report back on findings

Beta Survey Responses:

51 Participants

Moderated usability tests:

27 Participants

Beta test duration:

Dec 2020 - Feb 2021

 

Testing process

Customer ratings

What did we learn?

• Customers don’t like to use Gutenberg as a page builder
• Customers do use popular page builders in their workflow.
• Customers want WooCommerce to create online stores
• Pre-configured WordPress install templatesMultiple staging environments for collaborators
• Too many login credentials for the control panel and WordPress
• Customers want database access and SFTP users
• Customers wanted guidance after the website was completed
• Customers like paying in rands and not dollars for the product

Proposed next steps

• Make our framework compatible with popular page builders
• Introduce WooCommerce into our framework
• Provide SFTP users and database access for advanced customers
• Allow customers to create install templates to spin up pre-configured sites
• Use single sign-on to reduce WordPress login friction