UX Research and Consulting Project

Enhancement of the overall experience of PCS’ Behavioral Styles Profile assessment

Duration
2022 Fall (4 months)
My Role
  • Strategist
  • UX Researcher
  • UX Designer
Team
  • Yihao Shi
  • Haoyang Ling
  • Nina Man
  • Charles Song
  • You Wu
Enhancement of the overall experience of PCS’ Behavioral Styles Profile assessment

Project Overview

Introduction

Professional Consulting Services Inc. (PCS-Global) is a respected organization that specializes in providing a wide range of coaching, consulting and training services to individuals and businesses. One of the key assessment tools used by PCS-Global is the Behavior Style Profile (BSP) assessment. This tool has been instrumental in facilitating improved communication, fostering better relationships in different environments, and driving individuals to perform at their best. However, as the digital age evolved, PCS-Global recognized the need to enhance the user experience associated with the BSP assessment in order to maintain its validity and relevance.

Challenge

PCS-Global faced difficulties in tracking individuals and communicating with client companies about the BSP assessments. As part of my role, I focused on user interviews and data gathering to understand these issues and propose viable solutions.

Goal

Our primary objective was to enhance the overall BSP assessment process and simplify communication within PCS. To achieve this, I delved into the intricacies of the current process, developed a strategy to streamline the user journey, and created an intuitive UX design to facilitate an easy understanding of the assessment reports.

01. Methodology & Process

Our approach to solving the challenges revolves around a user-centric approach, known as contextual inquiry. My central role was conducting research interviews with our primary users, account managers, and others to uncover any pain points they were experiencing with the BSP process. Each interview was followed by an interpretation session where we dissected the content and highlighted key information.

Affinity Diagram

After the interviews, we conducted interpretation sessions to dissect the interview content and record key information. After conducting all of the interviews, we had an extensive data set of approximately 150 notes. We collaboratively analyzed these notes to create an affinity diagram to identify patterns, relationships, and key issues.

View full resolution (Link)

02. Results

Findings 1 - Workflow
The current workflow

The current workflow is labor-intensive and relies heavily on administrators. It consists of three main steps: sending test links, managing test results, and tracking customer progress. Instructions for testing are considered unclear and unwieldy. The sending of BSP reports depends on the administrator, and all customer data is entered manually and tracked on a spreadsheet. There is a need for a more automated and efficient system, as well as a condensed reporting format. Currently, PCS lacks a web engineer responsible for portal maintenance.

Recommendations
The revised workflow

In the revised workflow, the administrator retains the central role of communication, but the workload is now distributed among the online portal, the site engineer, and other roles. When a client decides to use BSP, the administrator coordinates with the site engineer to create a "Client Manager Account" and a unique company link. The client's employees use this link to create a user account, enter their personal information, and the company details are automatically filled in. The system then automatically reminds to complete the BSP and notifies the administrator when the assessment is complete. Client managers can access the results of the BSP directly from the portal, without the need for manual distribution by the administrator. Finally, user feedback is collected via an online questionnaire, automatically collated and sent to administrators and consultants. This overhaul reduces manual tasks, streamlines operations, and improves the user experience while ensuring effective feedback collection.

  1. Hire a Website Engineer: To automate the workflow, maintain the portal, and redesign the online portal interface.
  2. Implement a hierarchical account management system: This system should include three types of accounts: administrator, client manager, and user. The administrators and consultants would have access to all BSP reports. Client managers, responsible for internal BSP management, would have access to their company's reports. Users would only access their own reports.
  3. Automate BSP Access and Instructions: Allow client managers to distribute BSP access and instructions to their employees, reducing the administrator's workload.
  4. User Information Input: Users should input their personal information during sign up. This information should be accessible to client managers and PCS administrators.
  5. Redesign the Online Portal: The portal should be user-friendly, and help manage accounts, set up auto-reminders, and deliver BSP results conveniently.
  6. Account Management: Administrators should be able to view user sign-up dates, BSP completion dates, and results. They should also be able to manage payments and add notes about users.
  7. Implement Auto-Reminder System: The system should automatically remind users to complete the BSP and inform administrators when a user has finished.
  8. Use Electronic Feedback Forms: Online questionnaires should be used to collect user feedback, which can be automatically compiled and sent to administrators and consultants.

Findings 2 - The BSP Assessment

Our findings identified issues related to language, user interface, and troubleshooting that prevented users from successfully completing the BSP.

  • Language: Users reported difficulty understanding some of the words in the problem descriptions, causing confusion. The language used was often vague, making it difficult for users to immerse themselves in the scenarios provided.
  • User Interface: BSP instructions are displayed only once and users are unable to refer to them, resulting in incorrect responses. In addition, the BSP website is not mobile friendly, creating problems for users who prefer to conduct assessments on their phones.
  • Troubleshooting: Because of these issues, users often need help with the BSP process. The current method of communication via email is time consuming.
Recommendations
  • Language: Interview former users to identify frequently misunderstood words and replace them with more common alternatives. Consider providing alternative language versions of the BSP, such as Spanish. Use more real-life examples in the problem descriptions to make them clearer.
  • User Interface: Hire a network engineer to make the description accessible throughout the testing process and ensure mobile device compatibility so that the BSP is accessible to a wider range of people.
  • Troubleshooting: As language and interface issues are resolved, the need for troubleshooting should be reduced. However, a dialog window can be implemented on the BSP web page for immediate user support.
  • Mobile version of the BSP website: Develop a mobile version of the BSP website. This would make the BSP easier to access and allow for automatic saving of answers during assessments.
  • Live Chat Support: Implement a live chat widget on the BSP website. This will provide instant help to users, replacing the slower email support system.

Findings 3 - Results Delivery

The current method of delivering BSP results, usually via paper or PDF format, lacks user-friendliness and convenience. Customers want a web-based, easily comparable, visual reporting format that reduces manual effort.

Recommendations

We recommend that PCS adopt a paperless, web-based report delivery system that allows switching between condensed and detailed versions. This system should be able to provide more visual and comparative functionality and better organization of the results list.

Findings 4 - Employee Training

PCS's training workshops currently face problems in terms of format and content. Participants find the workshops overwhelming, inconvenient and impersonal, thus demanding a more flexible and effective approach to training.

Recommendations

We recommend that PCS streamline its training content and consider transitioning to online courses. This would allow for flexible and personalized learning while saving time and effort for both PCS and the customer.

Other Suggestions

We advise that PCS hire UI/UX professionals to implement our recommendations, adopt an online collaboration platform for efficient internal communication, and use video for advertising and promotion. These changes could greatly improve user experience, efficiency, and PCS's overall market appeal.