A powerful CRM web app.

In February 2022, I joined the Gorilla Jobs team, to work closely with the stakeholder who had already built the bare bones of a CRM.

The objective was to not only design the interface of the app by working closely with the dev team, but build a holistic framework to ensure scalability for the future, and push design boundaries to maximise user productivity to create a truly unique, all-in-one solution.

Throughout the design and development process, I spearheaded competitor research, built and managed a complex design system, actioned user feedback, and created a truly holistic app, from tables, dashboard, user permissions to settings pages, by continually iterating to not just meet, but exceed user experience.

Unfortunately, I cannot describe this project further, as it is under NDA. Alternatively, I have re-designed a mock CRM "Cedar", to illustrate one of the challenges we faced.

"Why can't I save my notes?"

All designs, whether app or web, hits their roadblocks. As the web app grew in backend logical complexity, that had to be translated into a user-centric design.

We introduced a new feature that enabled users to link notes to multiple records. The goal of this feature was to allow notes to be accessed and referenced from various pages within the CRM, improving cross-referencing and user productivity.

The way this translated in the initial UI/UX, was that users had to either toggle on, or off "Personal Notes", which would determine whether or not they would see "Managed Records".

The core of the problem

On default when creating an new note, "Personal Note" was toggled off, and with the current back-end logic and front-end UI, this meant that users had to add a record before the "Save Note" button became available.

We observed that out of 23 in-house users, only 7 of them were able to successfully save a note. Others would click in frustration, not understanding why they couldn't just save their new note.

"I really don't understand why I can't save this? I've written my note, but it just won't let me save it? I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do? Is it supposed to stay open? I'm confused?"

Let's try this again

After observing 70% of users were unable to simply save a note, we knew something had to change.

The main contending solution was to add an error message or a tool tip to the button. However, it did not seem to make sense to add more complexity, or hope that the discovery of these would lead to a higher save rate.

"Wait, why do we have this in the first place?"

When you seem so absorbed in the current UX, sometimes you miss the obvious.

To both solve this problem of low save rates, as well not relying on discoverability and complicating UI, I realised we could just remove the concept of "Personal Notes" – at least from the users perspective.

By removing the toggle, and coordinating with the dev team to tweak the back-end logic to be "if a note does not have a record, make it a personal note. If it does have a record, then link it as normal". From the users perspective they can now always save the note, and the appropriate type of note is assigned by the above logic.

A lot to look back on

It's not often a designer gets the golden opportunity to design an end-to-end product, and so I've been fortunate enough to learn and experience so many different facets of UX and UI over my 2.5 year tenure at Gorilla Jobs, as the lead Designer. Here are a few key takeaways from my time;

How to be a holistic and future-focused
Understanding that each new design challenge or feature, although simple at conception, had to be designed with future scalability in mind. Although challenging at first, this gave me experience in how to think about V1 designs, but also communicate with stakeholders on what our future requirements and vision was for the product.

Iterate, and fast
As each new design challenge arose, I learned how to quickly problem solve, but also iterate new designs quickly to ensure the pace of the project was met and not hindered.

Working with Developers
Working daily with developers in a lean team required me to communicate each new design and UX concept clearly and in terms they could translate into code. Additionally, I managed the developed product by leveraging my coding knowledge and experience. This included identifying bugs, proposing solutions, and assigning tasks to developers based on their strengths and workloads.

Collaborating with a cross-functional team
I developed strong collaboration skills by working with cross-functional teams, including front-end and back-end developers, marketing team, and stakeholders, to bring this product to life. Tailoring my communication to suit each team has been crucial for my growth as a designer, as effective communication is key to any team's success.