Hive : Subcategory Management System
Hive helps users store and surface key qualitative information around subcategories.
Hive enables better decision making as it makes the information about the subcategory and the client information in a structured way. Which leads MVF subcategories to be more profitable. The success is repeatable and business is robust & defendable.
With the old ways of working, the success of a subcategory is reliant on people’s memory. Usually the information is lost when people leave the business. Onboarding takes longer and the marketing executives repeat the past mistakes costing MVF money, time and lost opportunity of trying new things.
Having a knowledge platform for subcategories, the information about the subcategory and the client will be storied in a structured way. Being able to retrieve those information on demand helps answer some key important questions mentioned below.
- Why do subcategories fail?
- Why do clients churn?
- How do we get better at selling to our clients?
- What should we sell?
- What does our new verticals funnel look like, how many have we researched?
- What is our success rate with new verticals and roll outs?
- How do our clients stack up against their success metrics?
Hive | Subcstegory Knowledge Base
Product Manager, Design & Dev team from London visiting Belarus for team building with the eastern European counterparts.
Release 0 - Subcateogry System
Iteration 0 already brings vast amount of value to MVF but based on it’s shortcomings, there are still many lost opportunities
Screenshots of the status of Subcategory Management System can be seen in the images below. Please click on them to expand and view closer.
Release 1 - Subcategory System
Release 1 paved a nice way for collaboration between operations, design & dev teams as we produced important documents like experience map and process map which had a shared ownership among teams.
The robust Information Architecture and multiple design iterations guided by user testing enabled us to deliver a successful rollout of improved Subcategory Management System.
Experience Mapping
Expereince mapping with all the related business functions was conducted to understand the user journey and to identify the pain point. A shared ownership of the experience map encouraged collaboration between operations, design & dev teams.
Process Mapping
We created a process map to understand how the subcategory moves from one stage to another and to see which teams are involved for collaboration. It helped us scope out the Subcategory management system and understand what is in its remit and what other systems it is dealing with.
Information Architecture
A few user interviews were conducted to identify information needs and understand the existing information seeking behaviours. Poor visualisation and outdated design language in the existing system were resolved to improve the usability of the Subcategory Management System in Iteration 1.
Testing & Iteration
Many user testing sessions were organised and the mock ups were put under stress test. The mock ups were improved until they passed to a satisfactory level for first click tests, task completion rate, error free rate. It helped us make sure an excellent level of usability of the system.
Iteration 2 - Hive | Subcategory Knowledge-base
In release 2, we re-branded Hive to be a stand alone system:- outside of the overall complicated system. We started using Material Design and created MVF component library. This is one of the first projects to use MVF component library as part of Project Unification, an initiative to unify the look & feel of all the MVF systems.The new rebrand was received very well.
Contexual Enquiry 🔗
We conducted contextual enquiry to understand how Hive fits into the user workflow, the top tasks they perform on Hive and anything they think is not working for them.
Stakeholder Interview 🔗
We talked to key stakeholders to understand their vision for Hive, expected business outcomes, competitor landscape, their definition of success for Hive etc. Sample Interview questions can be found here.
Heat-map Analysis
We set up HotJar heat maps on existing subcategory pages to understand about scroll & click user actions which are crucial in completing tasks at hand.
Google Analytics
GA analytics informed us about the user flow, page level activities. It served a good purpose to have two sources of quantitative data sets to inform us.
Rebranding
The look and feel of Hive builds onto the existing MVF global brand and new components are developed and added into the MVF component library to give HIVE a unique experience from other MVF products in the portfolio. They all look similar but offers unique experience.
Component Library
Hive is the first application to use MVF component library. This created not only re-usable design but also re-usable code at the back end. It is expected to reduce Time to Market and give a competitive edge to the products.
Navigational Experience
The navigational experience up until release 1 was sub-par as it relied heavily on user's ability to recall the menu than recognition. By simplifying the menu, we are accommodating user's information seeking behaviours.
Information Architecture
By moving away from the rigid tabular information structure to a more hierarchical and visual way of presenting information, we improved the scannability of the information.
Interaction Patterns
MVF component library adopts Google's Material Design interaction patterns to make MVF products look more modern and behave in ways familiar to our users. Core concept explored for release 2 is Surfaces & Elevation model displayed below.
Slack Notification
Every time a change is made on the subcategory, the system records the changes and sends out notification into the related slack channel to notify the team of the changes being made so that everyone is informed about important updates.
Surface & Elevation
Component elevation values
1. Nav drawer: 16dp
2. App bar: 4dp
3. Card: 1dp to 8dp
4. FAB: 6dp
5. Button: 2dp to 8dp
6. Dialog: 24dp
Source: www.material.io
