The shaping phase was where the abstract challenges identified during discovery became tangible, actionable designs. This phase demanded a fine balance between creative ideation, iterative prototyping, and rigorous collaboration with stakeholders, users, and engineering teams.

Focus on impact

Building on the insights from discovery, we started by mapping user pain points directly to the solutions we needed to create.

Competitor feature comparison

Taking inspiration from the competition

This was useful to see both for inspiration but also as a useful guide as to what users might consider churning for.

Competitor Feature Comparisson

The above is our analysis of competitors, specificly Filtering, Search and Exports.

(Slide the pink bar)

Insights from competitors

Advanced Filtering and Insights

Competitors provided robust filtering options and saved views, making it easy for users to tailor their workflows.

Integrated Dashboards

Platforms like HubSpot showcased the power of a dashboard that combined high-level insights with the ability to drill-down to surface detailed data.

Bulk & Contextual

Competitors offered bulk actions and contextual prompts, intuitively adding complexity with respect to the users intent.

Opportunity Identified

While strong in visibility, and actions competitors lacked deeper personalisation as well as limited branding options.

Inspired by this gap, I pitched the concept stream of "Branding +" with the goal of plan differentiation. This was successfully launched in 2023.

Iterate and test.

Prototypes began low-fidelity wireframes and evolved as we incorporated user feedback. Frequent testing sessions provided invaluable insights, shaping the features in real time.

Early concepts were actually crafted in Excel, this allowed far easier collaboration not only with the team but also our customers who were a great source of inspiration and validation.

Very early brainstorming/ideation session - with topics like segment personalisation, filters, status, NPE+CPE, a services tab! and a whole new take on the products IA/Navigation, this is the fun part before all the constraints are realised!

Concepts for a review process - which while cut for the initial release followed in an initiative shortly after release.

Ensuring that every pain-point identified had an associated view.

Ideating on how to combine CPE and NPE data, and the implications to our Information Architecture (navigation).

Combining editor views - data mapping for feasability.

Wireframes that were newly revised based on customer feedback - and were intended for re-validation with "Sally" (the customer).

It's was't all smooth sailing. As a healthy design team we had regular "sparring" sessions - in this case on table actions, but got stuck in the weeds with:

"Is export down and import up?
Or is it the other way around?"

Iterations:

Ready for the team.

Once we had full alignment with engineering, product, and leadership, I focused on ensuring the entire team was equipped to move forward confidently. To do this, I ran a kickoff session designed to set everyone up for success.

It included:

End-to-End Walkthrough
A clear and digestible presentation of the initiative, aimed primarily at engineering, outlining the problem, solution, and objectives.

Detailed High-Fidelity Specs
These included interaction flows, visual designs, and acceptance criteria to guide development and ensure consistency throughout the process.