Restructuring settings for enterprise SaaS

Company

Waitwhile

Role

Sole designer

Team

A PM and three engineers

Timeline

Jan to Sep 2023

Outcome

Support tickets down almost 20%, availability settings 23% faster

TL;DR

Waitwhile was moving settings in-house. I saw a chance to fix the information architecture, not just the look. I tested three structures with users and shipped the winner, with measurable impact: support tickets dropped almost 20%.

Rebuild instead of reskin

The code had to be rebuilt anyway, so I pushed to fix the structure instead of restyling it: support tickets showed people couldn't find things. I built three prototypes: long pages, a side menu and a drill-down. In usability testing on the live product, the drill-down won every task.

Organized around workflows

People look for a setting the same way every time. Find the area, go in, change it, leave. So I grouped pages around how people actually work, like staff availability and service management. That improved key metrics: task completion time in availability settings went from 5m 20s to 4m 05s, about 23% faster.

One table component

A lot of settings is just lists. Instead of designing a new list for every page, I made one table component for the design system. Every list now works the same way, for consistency across settings, and new modules ship fast on top of it.

Automations made simple

Automations can get complicated fast. A trigger, a few conditions, then one or more actions. I broke that into three plain steps: when, if, then. You build a rule the way you'd explain it to a colleague, which matches people's mental model.

In short

Key decision

Rebuild the structure, not just the look, while the code was being rebuilt anyway.

Changed course

I tested three structures on the live product. The drill-down won every task, so I shut down the other two.

Outcome

Support tickets down almost 20%. Availability settings went from 5m 20s to 4m 05s, about 23% faster.

Takeaway

A rebuild that is happening anyway is the cheapest time to fix structure. The support queue showed where.