DigitalRoute
Product Designer | B2B SaaS | 2022-present
Overview
DigitalRoute has been in the data management field for 20 years, offering B2B SaaS softwares with advanced data integration and usage management solutions. Their software enables businesses to effectively leverage customer data and is used by telcos, streaming services, SaaS companies, and more. DigitalRoute also partner with SAP, AWS, Salesforce and so on.
Role
When I joined DigitalRoute in September 2022, I was responsible for one of their new product, Cloud Edition, designed for customers on public cloud platforms. My responsibilities included ensuring that the product was user-centric, met WCAG accessibility standards, and aligned with business objectives.
Personal profile on the company website.
Product Definition
A Narrow Definition: DigitalRoute provides “no-code” data automation tools. Simple case: Collect from a Amazon S3 bucket; validate and deduplicate it; then send it to Zuora billing and Analytic system. Do this every day at 9:00am.
A Wide Definition: DigitalRoute helps businesses handle large amounts of data. It automates usage data collection and processing so you can provide a single invoice of all usage to a unique customer in an errorless bill run.
Responsibilities & Achievements
At DigitalRoute, I led several key projects, including AI Assistant for smart workflow automation and decision support, Usage Intelligence for AI-driven insights and recommendations, Usage Metering for managing usage-based solution.
Working as a Product designer for a B2B SaaS software involves a unique set of challenges and opportunities, which have strengthened my skills in AI-powered product design, data-informed decision-making, storytelling, and designing for accessibility, contributing to DigitalRoute’s business growth and market competitiveness.
My Role Involved
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Defining business cases and user journeys.
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Developing intuitive, responsive and inclusive UX/UI solutions.
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Conducting usability tests and gathering user feedback.
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Maintaining and updating Design system.
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Collaborating with engineers on Storybook to test and refine UI elements.
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Working closely with product owners, engineers, and cross-functional teams to ensure solid outcomes.
Key Achievements
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Successfully led projects using the Triple Diamond process, collaborating with both Product Owners and engineers. This project set a benchmark for the company’s discovery process and established new standards for product discovery.
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Developed strong relationships with internal integrators and service teams, gathering valuable feedback and insights that significantly informed our work.
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Contributed to the successful launch of ‘Usage Metering’ at the SaaStock Dublin event, prepared the product demo, and helped DigitalRoute signed new customers.
Selected Highlights
Responsiveness - Designed responsive web pages for optimal viewing on all devices.
Storybook - Contributed to developing an organized structure in Storybook for better usability.
Design for Accessibility & Usability - A sample design topic...
Stream Editor Page Redesign - Aiming to streamline navigation and simplify the user experience by decluttering the current stream editor toolbar.
(We're currently updating the color theme, so please bear with any inconsistencies in color.)
Before
After
Way of Working
At DigitalRoute, the Design team is part of the Product Management team, making Product Managers our closest collaborators. We follow an Agile Methodology, which essentially means my role is to embrace failure quickly and frequently. I also constantly ask myself: Are we focusing on the right issues? Should we build this at all? Will users understand how to use our solutions?
I take pride in being an effective tester of potential failures before developing new products or features. This ability is one of the core values I bring to DigitalRoute.
Image Source: How To “Fail Fast And Often”
Design Process
To deliver high-quality, iterative, and user-centered products, we utilize the Triple Diamond Method in DR, which facilitate better collaboration among cross-functional teams, ensuring that everyone is aligned and working towards a common goal. See details below.
Take a look at one of my key projects, Usage Metering, that utilizes this framework.
Feedback Incorporation
Collecting user feedback is easy, but but transforming that feedback into actionable insights and executing them to enhance product quality can be challenging. At DR, we focus on creating a healthy feedback loop to keep improving and delivering better results.
Tools
During my time at DR, I’ve used a variety of tools to ensure our designs are both user-friendly and aligned with business goals and work with cross-functional teams.
Key Project
During my time at DR, I led one of my key projects called 'Usage Metering'. It is an extension of the product, a built-in data integration tool helps service-based companies meter how much their services are used and provides golden (billable) records to their billing system.
Impact on Business
Overall, Usage Metering has been a significant success for DigitalRoute, contributing to the expansion of our business strategy and enhancing our competitiveness in the market. This valuable feature has already secured five new customers and has served as an effective promotional feature on LinkedIn, attracting both end-users and business partners.
My Contributions
In this project, I was responsible for defining the business cases, user journey, product scope and breaking down iterations together with Product Owner and Architect, while also designing the intuitive UX and UI.
As you can tell, it is a quite complex feature and not easy to grasp, which has been one of the main challenges for me. I believed storytelling would be the key. To address this, I've been using several simple use cases to effectively communicate the project to teams and stakeholders, see in below steps.
Additionally, I contributed to creating marketing assets and detailed documentation, ensuring that all aspects of Usage Metering were well-documented and easily understood.
01. Value Discovery
We kicked off the project with value discovery interviews to identify why we were undertaking the project and why now. This was a very insightful discovery process for us, as it clearly highlighted the value of launching the project for the entire team.
02. Triad Workshops
To hammer out a clear product brief, we held 7-8 intensive full-day triad workshops over two weeks with two Product Owners and one Lead Engineer. During these sessions, we identified problems, defined the project scope, and developed potential solutions.
Captured by the exhausted triad team
To facilitate our discussions, I created a use case and a related user journey that helped us explore and refine solutions more effectively. Let’s meet WhaleCall, a telecom provider that recently launched a usage-based plan to charge users based on their actual usage. They implemented DigitalRoute to help them accurately meter their users' telecom usage.
I created a user journey board from the perspective of WhaleCall’s end customer, Charles, focusing on his mobile selection and activities. This board included the operations of both WhaleCall and DigitalRoute on each step. The product owner gave excellent feedback, saying this journey is a great tool tackling the complex project effectively as a team. See details below.
These triad workshops were super beneficial for us to define the product scope and break down into iterations, and ensure the solutions were feasible from both a product and technical standpoint. With a solid understanding of ‘What’, I began the solution design.
Usage Metering Design
03. Usability Tests
To make sure our solution design meets customer requirements, I conducted both high-level and in-depth usability tests with people of with varying levels of technical backgrounds.
During the sessions, I tested the design flow, built on the WhaleCall use case, with participants for the following scenarios.
04. Team Pre-Grooming
Thanks to the invaluable feedback from the usability test sessions, we've thoroughly reviewed and updated the Figma design for Usage Metering. We were ready for a pre-grooming session with the development team to share the main functionalities, user flow, and design details. Their feedback helped us polish the product even further.
05. Implementation Review
During development, as a Product designer, I remained actively involved to monitor and ensure the implementation goes smoothly. I addressed any questions or feedback from the developers to keep the process on track.
Learning and Growth
Overall, my time at DR has been an incredible experience. I've really sharpened my skills in gathering user feedback and making sure our designs fit business needs. I’ve built great relationships with PMs & developers who give me valuable design tips. Plus, I’ve made designing for accessibility a priority, ensuring my work is inclusive, legible and readable.
⭐ My Top 5 Learnings from Working at DR
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Better at making data-informed decision and addressing user-centric feedback.
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Considered the business perspective to ensure my design meets business needs.
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Made great friends with developers, who often offer valuable design suggestions.
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Perfected my storytelling skills, making complex projects easier to explain.
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Design for accessibility, ensuring my design is inclusive and meets WCAG AA standards.