Our Chat product has had a lot of focus in recent months as we look to really grow (and sell) the product more. Our sales and customer success team in particular have really been knocking it out the park.
Usage of the platform is increasing month on month, but also, the complexity of usage has grown with it. Our customers have been expanding the product across multiple teams within the institutions, which has thrown up some weaknesses within the product - most notably the ability to search.
The problem with our search capability is two fold really.
"If we can provide a more robust means of searching, alongside a means of actioning results then our customers can ensure conversations are dealt with in a quicker fashion and by the team best positioned to deal with the enquiry."
My first port of call was to speak to our wider product team and set about speaking with our more ‘heavy usage’ customers. I had a decent grasp of what I could do when it comes to improving the search having used many products with brilliant search capabilities but the missing piece for me was digging deeper on what exactly our users wanted to do with the results.
Through a series of customer interviews I discovered a broad range of use cases. Customers ultimately want to:
The first port of call for us was again to get together as a team - myself, our product manager and lead engineer for the Chat product - and map out the expected user flow. This allowed us to identify any pitfalls early and ensure that all implications, from both users and engineering point of view, were considered.
Armed with the finalised flow, I headed to my safe space…Figma 😅.
Some of the key UX improvements were:
Currently, the search input it sits in the sub-header, where it’s really unclear if it is a global search or a means of searching on just that page.
In-keeping with our mantra of ensuring our customers have the most efficient working practices we introduced shortcut commands, CMD + K is introduced as a means of quickly searching.
A more robust searching experience. This included the ability to pre-filter your search results, for example you could search within Conversations and specifically search within Channels or from certain individuals. We will also surface recent or frequent searches to the user. I also love the randomised tips suggested to the user 😍.
The search results now have their own dedicated page instead of the restrictive right hand panel view. This opens up so many possibilities when it comes to actioning search data!
On the search results page:
All the way throughout this project we have liaised with our customers, and following a series of demo’s with customers the feedback has been amazing. We have really hit the right tone with the proposed solution and I cannot wait until it is in the hands of our customers!
I really believe this project will have a significant impact on our Chat users daily lives. And that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?