WebEx Sign In
WEBEX PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS
MY ROLE
Interaction designer
KEY CONTRIBUTION
Identify the key issues
Design early concepts to help PM and ENG envision the scope of project
Design hi-fidelity mockups and implement
ABOUT PROJECT
WebEx productivity tools is the WebEx meeting scheduling tools for Microsoft office, including outlook, powerpoint and doc.
For almost a decade of time, there is no sign in mechanism in our product. Which is fine in the enterprise workstation. But with more and more products shifting strategy to Cloud, the sign in mechanism became a critical requirement to our product.
As the lead designer for the entire product, I identified the issue and started the conversation within the team.
DESIGN CHALLENGE
01. Unshakeable product history
It must have a strong reason for this tool without a sign in mechanism for so many years. The accomplish of the project had to shake the rules which might have unpredictable risk.
02. Multiple version of product
Because of the complexity of account type, the team was maintaining different versions of product for each account type. The necessary of creating a common sign in mechanism was challenged as well.
UNDERSTANDING
I talked with the experts in WebEx to understand the account types and product history before working on the design solution. Which is way more complicated than my hypothesis. To provide a seamless sign in experience for all our customers, I worked with my program manager to define the strategy for this project.
01. Working with security team to explore the possibility of simplifying the account type
I worked with my program manager to propose some alternative solutions for WebEx account.Meanwhile, we talked with the security team to understand the risk and seeking for collaboration.
02. Explore the alternative solutions without breaking any rule
From design perspective, I studied the current account rule and explored alternative solutions without breaking any rules.
Global mental model
I listed all criteria for account management and studied the similarity among different account type. I found a global rule from this study which can applied to all but with slight customization per account type.
I built paper prototype to validate the solution and tested with internal users. In the same time, I also explored the solution for simplified the account type.
LESSONS LEARNED
The discussion with security team was not as smooth as we expected. We had to have some trade off on user experience compared with the security requirement.
The good thing is with the full preparation, we migrated the completely different sign in process into a more consistent experience and establish the foundation to merge the multiple version of productivity tools into one global product.
Security requirement isn't always a blocker
Although we did not win the pitch with the security team literately, as a team, we did not treat the security requirement as a blocker any more.
In stead, it's a motivation to make the product better and more secure.
Risks lead to more opportunities
As a part of global sign-in discussion, we explored the potential of changing the product strategy from multi-version to a global version.
It was a big concern in the beginning but turns to a successful shifting eventually.
Start from the simply logic
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
SOLUTIONS
We established the global sign in mechanism with the help of WebEx system and user's cookie preference.
