MonkeyWorks —

Rethinking MonkeyWorks, a SaaS marketing activity tracking application.

Project TL;DR summary

I updated the design and improved the information architecture for the MonkeyWorks SaaS Web App for marketers wanting to track their marketing activities. I did this by researching current industry trends, simplifying the navigation and modernizing the UI.

* I initially helped work on the UX for this project back in 2015.

Problem statement

Since its initial launch, the MonkeyWorks MVP has had few updates and has not kept current with design trends and marketing technology advancements.

Making marketing tracking easier for marketers

This tool’s target customers are marketers and project managers for whom the web-application would serve as an essential marketing activity tracker.

With the abundance of marketing tracking solutions on the market, the bar has been set very high. The research shows that marketers would not hesitate to switch solutions quickly to get what they want as they have many options to choose from.

Rethinking marketing activity tracking

For the MonkeyWorks web app, I had three objectives I had set as my north star:

The first was to research how current technological advancements and the state of the market would affect the product.
The second was to improve the information architecture of the application to make it easier for users to navigate.
The third was to update the UI to a current look and feel.

Phase one:

To begin with, I performed research activities into the marketing analytics industry for current trends and technological advancements. I read blog posts, articles, and conducted competitive analysis research. What I observed was a number of industry trends that were not present during or not yet embraced widely in our initial research:

With marketers working from home due to the pandemic, there is an acceleration towards digitization.
The once memory-hogging analytics have become swifter, smarter and more flexible, leading to more organizations moving towards cloud based storage.
In 2021, the use of automated AI will lead to more accurate and actionable insights.

During the remainder of the first week, I audited the whole experience and drafted user stories that would target improvements to the navigation, refresh the UI and improve the overall information architecture.

Phase two:

The next phase was to simplify the global and local navigation paths. This was done by adding more intuitive icons, streamlining labeling and making interactive elements, such as form elements, links and buttons, more visually obvious.

These updates to the navigation would allow for the user to navigate between pages more easily than with the prior design.

Phase three:

The remainder of the time was spent improving the UI and testing the updates. I added visual charts where possible to make the data easier to understand, along with taking instructional text and putting it in popovers. I also reorganized the sequence of how the data was presented improving the information architecture of the web app.

Finally, I created a simple prototype that I used for user testing with a couple of users that I had connections with on LinkedIn who worked within the marketing field. Based on their feedback, there were a couple design tweaks, but the refresh was generally well received.

After having refreshed the UI design, tightening up the information architecture, and testing it with a limited number of users, there’s a good chance these updates would have helped the web app stay competitive.