Progress Easyl

Easyl was a new endeavor for Progress. The original version of the platform allowed users to connect data sources and data tables from various business data collections like Salesforce, Hubspot, Eloqa, and Excel. I worked as the sole UX resource on a decentralized agile team of developers, architects, and QA people. Outside of the day-to-day delivery, I was tasked with creating a process for UX and design integration within the agile development process.As the key point of contact from the UX team on the project I was tasked with driving the creative direction. I worked closely with the Visual Designer to develop a new visual language that became the basis for Progress’ web-based services.

Process

For the initial design we adopted a more traditional waterfall process. However, once the base set of wireframes had been finalized and tested, the development team began with agile sprints, with the design sprints 4 weeks ahead of development..

Usability Testing

The team performed a round of benchmark testing on the original UI prior to design work, these results were then used to measure the improvements in task completion by users of the new UI. The results proved that simplified concept model, and the approach to report creation was a significant improvement. Users were impressed with the familiarity of the tools, as well as the visual cues for performing more complex tasks.

User Experience

Easyl was designed to be familiar to even the most novice of users. The Excel spreadsheet-like UI tested well with users, they felt it was approachable, and made using the tool feel similar to the work they were already doing.