Product Simplification Redesign

Redesigning Bidscale for Enhanced Usability and Simplicity

Leading a platform-wide simplification of a product to streamline user experience without compromising essential features or disrupting existing users.

Client

Bidscale

Expertise

Workshop Facilitation

UX + UI Design

Industries

Technology

Government

Date

April 2024

The Challenge

In Spring of 2024, the design team was tasked with leading the simplification effort across the entire Bidscale software. Bidscale’s core UI had remained virtually unchanged since it was first designed in 2021. Through data gathering and user interviews, we found that many pages and features were not being used and left users feeling overwhelmed when first logging into the platform. Our challenge was to simplify the product as a whole without removing core functionality or disrupting current users in the tool.

The Approach

The design team first conducted onsite usability testing with active users. We had two main objectives 1.) create new user personas, 2.) discover any missed user pain points. As a result of these interviews, we developed five new government user personas to help the team empathize with our end users and understand the unique needs of different roles. All personas represent a specific government position that has used our tool.

Once this research was compiled, I led a 2-day in person workshop with designers, product managers, and our CEO. At this workshop, we reviewed newly developed user personas, used affinity mapping from both user and employee feedback, developed a user journey map; ultimately, leading to the creation of a new and improved Bidscale site map.

After the site map was completed, the design team created low fidelity wireframes of the simplified Bidscale product. These wireframes were presented to all key company stakeholders for approval. Once all feedback was implemented, the design team laid the groundwork with developing new layout grids for desktop, tablet and mobile and new responsiveness guidelines for all screens. We tackled each screen page by page making adjustments to core components and introducing new components when necessary.

Previous Site Map

NEW Site Map

The Results

The simplification effort from research, to design, to final release took 6 epics over the course of 8 weeks. We set up calls with real users 4 weeks after our first release for customer feedback. Upon the first epic release (homepage and navigation), we immediately received positive customer feedback on navigating to their Initiatives. The table view and added functionality, including search and filters, helped our users get to their Initiatives much quicker than before. Reorganizing all information within an Initiative “folder” allowed us to completely flatten the navigation. Users now had one doorway into their work, reducing number of clicks and eliminating any confusion.

Since initial release, we have not changed the initial site map. Instead, we have improved existing screens by adding new features and introducing Bidscale AI to accelerate our user's processes. The homepage now has saved filters allowing users to quickly select a pre-determined filter from a dropdown list. This is especially important for our user's weekly stand-ups with leadership. Additionally, the Initiative overview page now includes Bidscale's AI Assistant that allows users to easily accept suggested data suggestions and document templates.