Background

V1 of Galixy was built, but the app wasn’t gaining traction internally (among stakeholders) or externally (among clients).

Why? The dev team responsible for the initial build didn’t have the resources to conduct customer research or usability testing. As a result, usability suffered, leading to slow adoption.

As a Designer with over 15 years of experience in entertainment, Light Iron hired me to consult on the design of the platform in 2022. My objectives:

• Conduct Customer Research to determine how people work now
• Conduct Product Testing to learn what needed to be fixed in the app
• Define user flows to inform designs
• Design new screens / flows to improve usability and increase adoption

User Research

I conducted user research with several target users and decided to focus my efforts on optimizing for the upper right corner of the red route matrix below:

Usability Testing

The matrix informed the tasks for our usability test sessions:

1. View the status/details of a VFX Pull Request
2. Submit a new VFX PR
3. Correct errors in a faulty PR
4. Email the primary point of contact for the PR

I led testing sessions remotely with 5 Light Iron employees, each with varying familiarity with VFX Pulls Requests:

The key measurements recorded were:

1. Success & Failure rates
2. Completion times
3. Perceived ease of use

Synthesis

Usability Testing surfaced a number of Issues that I prioritized by frequency and severity.

The highest priority issues observed:

Navigational Clarity

"From here, I will say I don’t know where to go..."
– Maureen, Galixy Test Participant

All test participants were confused by the site navigation. The most useful functionality was hidden several menu layers deep and it took a minimum of 4 unintuitive steps to perform any meaningful task.

By consolidating core functionality into a projects table, I got that down to 1 single step from the new landing page. And that was just a temporary solution until the developers could build a more streamlined approach.

VS.

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Project Dashboard

In User Research, multiple users mentioned having to juggle dozens of projects and losing track of which was which. To alleviate this, I designed a simple, project-specific dashboard where a user could get their bearings before performing relevant tasks.

I sketched some options and the PM and developers decided #5 and #6 worked best:

They liked these designs because they were:

• Simple and Easily Scannable
• Modular and able to grow with Galixy
• Actionable, providing users flexibility

After some iteration, the Product Manager and developers signed off on the following Mid-Fidelity wireframe:

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UX Writing / Content Design

In addition to research and design, I also leveraged my content design experience to improve the clarity of the web app copy. This was essential because any misunderstanding between Light Iron and a VFX house could cost the facility hours of labor. I performed a full UX writing audit across the entire site, with a couple examples shown below:

Impact / Conclusion

The impact of my work was enormous:

• User adoption skyrocketed 500% in 6 weeks
• 2x task completion speed
• Perceived usability tripled
• New modular framework for future updates
• Elevated fit & finish competes with offerings from Light Iron’s competitors

As such, Light Iron has requested I consult on future product updates, and I look forward to collaborating with them to build the future of post production.