Short on time? Check out the pitch deck for a quick look at the final outcome of this project.

The Setup

The Setting: In the summer of 2015 I worked as a Product Design Intern at Lithium Technologies in Austin, TX. This branch of Lithium develops the Lithium Social Web (LSW) product. This product serves the enterprise and helps large corporations manage the huge amount of social media interactions that they must carry out on a daily basis. Social media managers and agents for companies like HBO, Comcast, American Airlines and Comedy Central use LSW to quickly address the needs and concerns of their customers - LSW helps facilitate fast responses and assists agents in filtering through the overwhelming volume of posts, comments and messages they receive. 

Problem Space: Over the course of the ten week internship I was tasked with updating and improving the agent profile to help integrate it into the new LSW update, while also improving usability. I also explored several new features for agents using LSW, such as: gamification, an internal messaging system and a new social network connection process. 

I spent the first few weeks of the internship learning the ins and outs of the LSW platform, as well as interviewing a variety of stakeholders within the company to get a better feeling for how to product is used and might be improved. 

Project Duration: 10 weeks

The Problem Space

This project was part of a major visual and functional overhaul of the LSW system that aimed to dramatically improve both the aesthetics and usability of the product. I worked closely with other designers involved in the update, as well as the engineers developing the designs into functional products.

In order to get the agent profiles up to speed with the rest of the product update I knew I had to:

- Update the UI to integrate the profiles with the new visual aesthetic

- Improve the onboarding flow for new agents

- Provide easy access to the profile and community settings within the profile card

- Improve UX - aiming for seamless integration of the profile/settings into the new system

- Utilize common patterns to keep important info readily accessible and easily understandable

Achieving these goals would require close cooperation with others involved on the project. Lithium employs an agile method of development, and I was closely supported by both my supervisor and the engineering team on this project.

Research and Insights

Throughout the internship I had the opportunity to engage with stakeholders within Lithium, as well as clients outside of the company. 
Brief interviews conducted with coworkers throughout Lithium - ranging from marketing, to sales, to engineering - gave me a better understanding of LSW as a whole. These discussions also provided invaluable insight into what has made Lithium successful in the past and what would keep it competitive in the future. 
Partaking in interviews with clients helped to uncover where the pain points in the LSW system might lie, and provided suggestions for improving the profile page and integrating it successfully into the LSW product as a whole. 

The first step in any new project is to understand the system as a whole and to iterate rapidly. Once I understood the problems facing our users, and the constraints within which those problems might be addressed, I picked up my pen and a stack of paper and started to sketch. Sketching allows for the extremely rapid generation of a wide range of ideas. It helps me to expand upon the problem without getting too attached to any one solution.

I received feedback and critique from the product design team every step of the way. This feedback was instrumental in ensuring the profile page met expectations and stayed consistent with the rest of the LSW ecosystem.

The Redesign

After solidifying the layout and interactions behind the new profile menu, I mocked up a high-fidelity prototype using Sketch 3 and Invision. Invision doesn't support embedding desktop prototypes, so I created this gif using Principle to show the design in context. (Please allow a moment for the gif to load.) 

At the end of the summer I presented the design to stakeholders from product, marketing and engineering: 

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Lessons Learned

It's nearly impossible to encompass everything I learned in these 10 weeks in only a few paragraphs. This internship helped bridge the gap between the skills I'd learned in an academic setting and their application in the real world. It taught me the importance of involving stakeholders both inside and outside of the company. I learned how to work quickly and efficiently in small teams to design and implement product improvements, how to effectively accept and integrate feedback and critique into a design, and most importantly I learned to understand the role of the UX designer within the larger corporate ecosystem.