Optimizing Partner Hub Customer Data Validation
Overview
Webex Partners contribute to 94% of Webex sales, with Partner Hub being the portal where they’re able to track and manage their customers’ Webex settings and services.
A country selection bug found in Partner Hub’s customer creation wizard that led to organizations having incorrect configurations set on their network and negatively impacting the end user’s overall experience with Webex services.
In response, I redesigned the customer creation experience such that it proactively handles errors in the wizard and ensures country selection consistency in each step.
Role: Product Designer
Tools: Figma, Jira, Webex
Process stages: Competitive Analysis, Heurisitic Evaluation, Initial Design Solution, Iteration, High-fidelity Mockups
When: October - November 2022
Client: Webex Partners
The Current State of the Partner Hub Customer Creation Wizard
Stakeholder discussions revealed that there was no validation preventing a mismatch in the country selection data between steps.
As a result, customer organizations could have multiple location configurations set on their network, resulting in network and latency issues when using Webex services.
“ASK: The Country field within the Headquarters setup should be prepopulated with the Template selection and changing it should display a warning. The current setup allows me to create a template that is US focused with CCPP however I provision the customer to the EMEA platform on the HQ screen.”
Heuristic Evaluation
Used NNG Usability Heuristics and found additional problem constraints when updating for the customer creation flow
Lack of error prevention measures when a mismatching country is selected.
Users forced to recall info: It’s not clear to a partner what the original country selection is in the previously-made template.
Lack of consistency with two conflicting country selections that are both required:
In the Template Creation Wizard, it determines PSTN Carrier selections.
In the Headquarter’s location screen, it determines the cluster a customer is provisioned on.
UX Goals
Validate country selection without making it a hurdle for partners
Error prevention and recovery: Help partners recover from errors and proactively prevent them.
Consistency and visibility: Country selection data should remain clear and consistent through the customer creation from template to final review.
Initial Design Solutions
Initially explored 3 design treatments for country selection validation
I initially considered 3 options for improving the country selection validation: toasts, inline messages, and making the country selection field read-only and prepopulating it.
Option 1: Toasts
Great for presenting short information in real time, such as the country selection error message I was trying to implement, but faced concerns with insufficient error-handling and reactive validation.
Option 2: Inline Message
Improved the visual hierarchy by grouping the error message with the input, but the validation was still reactive, only being performed after a partner attempted to navigate to the next step in the wizard.
Additionally, suggesting an error recovery solution began to cramp the text up against other fields.
Option 3: Make field read-only and pre-populate it
By making the country selection input field read-only prevents partners from incorrectly modifying of the country selection.
Pre-populating the country selection field based on the value in the customer template chosen earlier in the wizard, we proactively prevent mismatching data throughout the flow.
Option 3 was the strongest option since it proactively prevented errors due to mismatching data or incorrect country selection changes.
Although Option 3 resolved the validation concerns in the wizard, stakeholders were concerned that partners were still having to recall every country that was selected in previously created templates.
As a result, I looked to update the wizard to reduce the cognitive load on partners when selecting a template.
Updated Validation and Customer Creation Flow
Minimize the info a partner has to recall while proactively preventing errors with conflicting country selection data.
Updated the first step of the customer creation wizard by introducing country-based filtering. By requiring a country selection first, we dynamically filtered the template options, ensuring a clearer, more relevant experience for partners.
Additionally, if there are no templates for a country selection, we guide partners to where they can create one.
From there,the country selection field on the Headquarters location screens would autofill based on the previously selected option and be set to read-only to prevent accidental modifications.
If they need to update the country selection, they only have to update it in one place, the Customer Information screen, and it will reflect everywhere else.
Outcomes and Future Steps
With the updated country selection validation and error-handling measures, the customer creation wizard is made more robust and easier to use.
Proactive error handling ensures country selection data is consistent, and making the field read-only prevents partners from incorrectly modifying the field in one place only.
More in-context support notifyies partners on how to quickly diagnose, and recover, from errors when templates are unavailable right away.
Reduce the cognitive effortrequired from partners by only having the available templates options filtered by the country a partner selects in the first step of the wizard.
If I had more time to work on this feature enhancement, a consideration I would keep in mind during the next iteration of this solution is allowing easier navigation back to the Customer Templates screen from the wizard.
Currently, we only allow partners to navigate back to the Customer Templates screen if there are no templates and they want to create a new one.
This feature enhancement is now in production for Webex Partner Hub.