Streamlining Merchant Data

One of my division’s primary products is their portfolio management application. This application allows our partners to board and support their merchants as well as gives them insights into their business portfolio.

Despite the tool’s overall utility, until recently, partners were required to submit a support ticket to make changes to their merchant’s profile. This included any updates to demographic, legal, and banking information. In an effort to alleviate these issues, the Product team embarked upon a mission to automate updates to merchant accounts.

How can we make it easy for partners to update their merchants’ accounts and decrease the number of tickets submitted for simple changes?

Bringing Ideas to Life

One of the team’s product managers created low fidelity wireframes to outline the appearance and functionality of the page. I then created high fidelity, interactive prototypes for usability testing (available for viewing upon request).

Going to the Users

In order to assure that all user types were included, I investigated which of our internal teams were leveraging maintenance support tickets in the application. I conducted a first round of usability testing with 10 individuals, both internal and external. By recording clicks, time to completion, and user journeys, I was able to identify several areas of improvement for the flow and layout of the page.

Building it Better

To address the different issues, I collaborated with the Product Manager to come up with new designs for the feature. We made several changes that we hoped would improve the user experience.

The Benefits of Iteration

After prototyping the new design for the feature, I conducted an additional round of 8 usability tests with new participants. Our changes led to a 49% increase in the usability of the feature.

The End Result

After we were confident with the new design, I worked with the Product and Engineering teams to develop the feature. The first phase of the feature launched in January 2024 and led to a 48% YOY decrease in the number of submitted support tickets (not to mention a large overall increase in satisfaction from our partners).