The Location Platform team has been tasked with redesigning the Location Developer Platform to focus on revamping content for decision makers—a project known as Customer Connect.
Since the previous iteration of the platform, we added a dedicated Technical Writer and Communications team member to assist with spearheading technical and marketing content respectively. I was tasked to redesign the Developer Portal to adhere to Verizon branding standards and work with the Technical Writer and Product Owner to restructure the information architecture of the site and make design decisions that align with the requests from various stakeholders.
When approaching the interaction and visual design, I took into consideration the new marketing content, adjusted information architecture, user research interviews with subject matter experts in tandem with the Verizon Branding Design System. By improving content, copy, and design, we aim to achieve an improved user experience and user interface for developers, decision makers, and stakeholders.
This Customer Connect initiative has the benefit of utilizing various dedicated resources that were not available or present in the previous iterations of the site. Through the collaboration of multiple subject matter experts and continuous user research, we have successfully surfaced a variety of pertinent content for our target users.
A Developer who actively utilizes APIs and SDKs to integrate within his company’s applications more quickly and seamlessly.
An Executive whose role as the decision maker selects which vendor to utilize their technology to meet the company’s KPI’s and business goals more effectively and efficiently.
A Product Owner who’s job it is to assure that the documentation will achieve the needs of the business while also making the developers’ lives easier.
Primarily, we wanted to better understand what developers, like Josh, like and dislike about other developer portals they have used in the past.
Additionally, we wanted to validate users' behaviors regarding the utilization of the search functionality.
of interviewees preferred the structure in which the APIs and SDKs were separated based on platform.
of interviewees stated they did not utilize the search functionality within developer portals they have used in the past.
OPTION A
OPTION B
Verizon branding guidelines do not prescribe exactly where breadcrumbs are placed within the layout of the site. In order to assure that the breadcrumb placement—only present within the documentation pages—was the appropriate choice from a developers’ perspective, we conducted an A / B test on subject matter experts.
My assumption was that the placement for Option A would be best, as the breadcrumbs would be placed directly above the documentation it is referencing. Additionally, during my competitive analysis for breadcrumb placement on other developer portals, I found that breadcrumbs were more commonly found above the documentation. For Option B, the placement of the breadcrumbs above the left hand navigation could likely increase cognitive load and would be placed above all documentation—not necessarily the documentation in which it references.
Our results found that 83% of interviewees preferred Option A where the breadcrumbs are placed directly over the documentation content. One interesting perspective that a developer mentioned, was that if he were to print out the documentation page, he would want the breadcrumbs to be present to provide more context for him.
This marketing-focused home page is geared towards users like Cara and Dan who want to assure that the products offered will meet the business goals and align with their technical needs.
One goal of this page was to highlight the Industry Solutions and Use Case pages, which were created by the Location Platform team to provide contextual information in a less technical manner. To achieve this, I chose to utilize Verizon’s variations of Feature Media designs to increase discoverability and in turn promote traffic to these new pages
The goal of these marketing pages were to provide an easy way for product-focused individuals like Cara and Dan—who were likely not going to look through documentation pages—to find out if the products offered aligned with their needs.
This marketing-focused home page is geared towards users like Cara and Dan who want to assure that the products offered will meet the business goals and align with their technical needs.
One goal of this page was to highlight the Industry Solutions and Use Case pages, which were created by the Location Platform team to provide contextual information in a less technical manner. To achieve this, I chose to utilize Verizon’s variations of Feature Media designs to increase discoverability and in turn promote traffic to these new pages
The main improvements to this iteration of the documentation content page was in the left hand navigation. In the previous iteration that can be founthere were a lot of visual elements that increased cognitive load for the user.
To overcome this challenge, I chose to simplify the left hand navigation, and keep it as simple as possible. Additionally, based on my findings from conducting A / B tests on the breadcrumb placement, I chose to structure them above the documentation content as opposed to above the left hand navigation.
The blog was a compilation of utilizing Verizon’s various Tile Media designs. Rather than having the blog be very straight forward with symmetrical blog posts in a row of 3 or 4, I wanted to make the design a bit more visually enticing by utilizing a non-traditional structure for the landing page.
Developer portals at times are overlooked and misjudged for the importance that they hold for a company’s business. If I learned anything from this project, it is that—no matter the domain or size—any proper solution to a design challenge has the ability to make a valuable impact.
Knowing that there were additions to the team that would allow us to improve transparency, stay informed, and have accountability for our work, I was excited to finally be able to conduct the user research that we were missing from the earlier iterations of the Developer Portal. Leveraging internal resources to conduct user research interviews, and A/B testing allowed us to validate the design and development decisions that we were making.
If I were to do anything differently in this project, I believe it would be valuable to conduct further user research and usability testing on our additional personas past users like Josh (Developer). Specifically, users like Cara and Dan would allow us to assure that we were providing the appropriate information that is required from a decision maker—especially considering we were introducing new pages directed towards those users.In conclusion, this iteration of the Location Developer Portal was one that I am extremely proud of. Not only were we able to address the needs of our primary users, but we were able to improve the information architecture and usability of the site overall. Additionally, we were able—thanks to our internal Drupal Developer—to assure that the CMS would be scalable and flexible for the future needs of the Developer Portal.