CX Marketplace
Role: Lead Product Designer | Client: Cisco System Inc | Time: March 2020- Feb 2021 | Demo: Storefront , Publisher
How Might We Enable partners to create more personalized and value-added solutions for their customers to improve Cisco’s product capabilities?
Cisco is a global technology leader, partners are very important for Cisco because almost 90% of the company’s revenue comes through partners. The CX Marketplace was a new product that intended to offer thousands of free and paid applications in different categories and industries, such as enterprise and networking, cloud, IoT, and DevOps.
CX Marketplace connects partners to customers, it provides an easy and accessible way for Cisco’s customers to discover and deploy personalized third-party solutions for their businesses. Also, it gives the possibility to partners and 3rd-party developers to build and publish their value-added solutions that improve Cisco’s product capabilities.
Role and Responsibilities
I was the lead product designer for the CX Marketplace, I worked with a small agile team, driving the product design and service design work stream. My main responsibilities included:
Led the end-to-end product design of the CX Marketplace from defining strategy, conceptualization to execution, ensuring seamless experiences
Collaborated closely with the product owner and business managers to define the vision and strategy, requirements, scope and plan the MVP release
Led qualitative research initiatives, conducted interviews, and usability studies
Developed a holistic ecosystem, leveraged research data and system thinking to create an understanding of the complexities and enhance the experiences for all involved parties
Facilitated various co-design workshops with the cross-functional team to ideate, evaluate and iterate design concepts
Guided and reviewed the visual designer and researcher deliverables, ensuring they are consistent, following the best practices and are aligned with business objectives
Worked closely with developers, fostering effective communication to ensure the quality of design implementation
Core Team
Lead UX/UI Designer (Me)
Product owner
Lead Technical Architect
Visual Designer
Developers (4)
Cisco Executives and Business Managers
Key Achievements
Successful launch of the MVP, meeting all criteria and ensuring a seamless user experience
Received highly positive feedback from Cisco executives, partners and internal users. Increased the number of partnerships from 2 to 5 within 6 months.
25% increase in customer satisfaction levels
Break the silos and align product owners and stakeholders of all the connected products
Received recognition for collaboration, guiding designers and high-quality user experience
“Peggy’s system thinking skills have played a crucial role in defining the strategy of the Marketplace, contributing significantly to its overall success.”
“Peggy has truly excelled in her role as the Lead Designer for the CX Marketplace project. She has shown an impressive capability to guide the design process from conceptualization to defining essential MVP features. She consistently demonstrated a proactive approach and remarkable skill in breaking down silos and aligning stakeholders”
Methodology and Process
Phase 1: Understand and Discover
I conducted semi-structured interviews and co-design workshops with internal stakeholders and potential users during the early stages. The main objective was to gain a deep understanding of CX products and learn about the CX products’ strategy, target groups, and context. This helped to understand the current state and define CX Marketplace's strategy, main target groups and value proposition.
Research Methods
After conducting primary and secondary research, facilitating co-design workshops with a cross-functional team and synthesizing data, I successfully developed a future-state CX Marketplace ecosystem, encompassing all relevant players, elements, relationships, and systems, while highlighting the main flow of the service. This detailed map was evolved through review sessions with key SMEs and stakeholders.
CX Marketplace Ecosystem
It assesses user behaviour across touch-points, providing valuable insights at interaction intersections
Reveal critical connections between CX Marketplace and other CX products, enhancing understanding of the customer experience
Played a crucial role in defining strategy and decision-making. Also, It identified collaborative opportunities with teams for improved service experiences
I conducted co-design workshops with key SMEs to define prototype personas. We identified three main personas:
Consumers: discover and deploy Cisco and third-party solutions that could improve their product performances and reduce operational expenses
Developer: learn, build, publish and promote their solution in the marketplace
Reviewers: review applications that are requested by developers and complete tasks
Customer High-Level Storyboard
Partner’s Developer High-level Storyboard
Partner’s Developer’s Value proposition
Phase 2: Ideate and Creation
Over 20 MVP Features
100+ User Stories
3+ Iterations For Each User Story
10+ Interactive Prototypes
I leveraged research data, found inspiration, and generated various innovative concepts. In collaboration with the product owner and SMEs, we defined and evaluated the product requirements. I created user flows to show the user's journey and collected input from different teams to improve the flows and the user experience. After validating the user flows with the product owner and SMEs, I made wireframes for each story and developed interactive prototypes to showcase the interactions. These high-level flows and wireframes acted as a common reference point, fostering open discussions and continuous improvements. They played a crucial role in the success of the CX Marketplace platform.
The main features of the CX Marketplace MVP for different user roles
For Consumers:
Product catalogues for easy browsing of available applications
Advanced filtering options to refine search results based on specific criteria
Detailed information about each product to make informed decisions
Free trial availability to test applications before committing
Ability to provide feedback on the experiences with the applications
The easy renewal process for continuing usage of preferred applications
For Developers:
The publishing of new applications processes and functionalities
Updating and releasing new versions of their applications to improve functionality
Monitoring the performance of their applications to track user engagement
Engaging in the review process to ensure quality and receive valuable feedback from reviewers and other developers
For Reviewers
Assessing the quality of applications to ensure high standards
Facilitating communication with other reviewers and publishers to share insights and collaborate
Phase 3: Reflection
The phase was about validating the design and gathering foundational information on overall experience and motivations. In collaboration with a researcher, we conducted usability testing sessions with 5 internal users to validate the desirability and usability of the CX Marketplace. I created an interview guide that includes context questions and multiple think-aloud scenarios tasks. During the sessions, I observed how they interacted with the prototype. The usability sessions revealed improvements in designs and some new ideas that were added to the backlog for future development. Key Findings and Implications:
Reduced efforts:
Automation and fewer integration points will make publishing applications easier for developers
Scan and security validation of the application were expected
Personalized dashboard:
The ability to customize metrics in the App Insight Dashboard was expected
Phase 4: Implementation
During this phase, I collaborated closely with a visual designer, providing direction and feedback on high-fidelity designs. I ensured adherence to design principles and best practices, leveraging the design system to maintain consistency and visual coherence. We collaborated closely with developers to ensure the design translated smoothly into implementation. To facilitate seamless collaboration, I organized weekly meetings with the development team. These meetings provided a platform for constructive discussions, addressing any design-implementation challenges, and ensuring that the final product aligned with the intended vision and user experience. Working closely with the developers allowed for a more efficient and effective development process, ultimately leading to a successful and well-executed product.
Takeaways
The CX Marketplace was launched successfully. For this project, I was rewarded for collaboration and successful design. The key success metrics were:
Successful launch of the MVP, meeting all criteria and ensuring a seamless user experience
Received highly positive feedback from partners and their interest in investing in the platform, resulting in at least 5 partnerships established within next six months
Aim for a minimum of 15 published apps and increase app publications by 20% within the first quarter
Received requests from top executives to plan for the next release of CX Marketplace
Some of the key takeaways from this project are:
Close collaboration with key stakeholders. Successful design is created in collaboration with the cross-functional team. Having strong communication skills and building trust with stakeholders impacts the final result.
Creating a safe and supportive space for my team to freely share their ideas and receive feedback. I also provide constructive feedback while ensuring that the focus remains on the ideas and design solutions
Create a strategic plan to launch an MVP. Even though the plan can change and evolve, having a foundation and roadmap helps to deal with out-of-scope requests and focus on delivering a quality product in time.
Involve engineering upfront. This helps to reduce any rework later on as an understanding of the technical limitations upfront will help to inform design strategy.
Click here to view Invision prototypes: Storefront, Publisher