Workshare Desktop App
Sync Conflict
Workshare is an enterprise software company with a market leading position in the legal tech market.
The Desktop App allows users to collaborate securely on documents and control versioning. This is particularly important when working as a team on large contracts.
Sometimes collaboration can create a mismatch between the cloud version and the desktop app in naming, location, and ownership, this is called a sync conflict. This feature had not been updated for a number of years and was causing a steady flow of support tickets.
My brief, identify areas of weakness and improve usability and reduce support calls.
Discovery
The Workshare desktop app is installed by the user or IT department as a secure productivity tool for lawyers on Microsoft Windows.
The User Journey
Sync Conflict uses a tree structure, which is familiar to users of Microsoft Windows. The drawback is that it hides information important to the users and it takes many clicks to find the correct file and resolve a sync conflict.
Progress and Resolution
A sync conflict can take time for the system to resolve but there is no progress indication. Once the conflict has been resolved there is no feedback about resolution, leaving the user confused and creating support calls.
Findings & Next Steps
The UX review defined the scope and brief:
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Create a clear and discoverable way to resolve a conflict.
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Reduced the amount of “clicks” required to resolve a sync conflict.
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Define and explain clearly what the different sync conflicts are and why they require resolving.
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Display progress when resolving a conflict and inform the user that the conflict has been resolved.
Research
Traditionally Workshare has found it difficult to recruit UX research participants, as the users were normally very busy and expensive lawyers, predominantly based in America. With sync conflict, this was even more difficult as Mix-panel analytics informed me that they were our heaviest users, our super-users.
Fortunately, I identified two superusers on site, our chairman, and CIO. I interviewed both in-depth and asked them to take me through how they resolve a sync conflict and to describe some of the issues they have.
This provided great insight. It also had the unintentional consequence of keeping the project manager on board with the redesign, as it was based on the chairman's feedback.
Designing with developers
First I needed to identify and understand the 20 different conflicts and how technically they were resolved. I worked closely with the lead developer on the desktop app. He was of great help in understanding the complexity of this feature. It became apparent that the communicating resolution options were of primary importance.
The design took the form of a modal panel to keep it consistent with Windows and Workshare UI. The opening and closing of the modal panel could also inform the user on progress and provides enough screen space to describe the sync conflict and resolution options.
Working with the company's technical writers we rewrote the copy to reassure users, clearly explaining the options available, prioritising what information was important for the user and simplifying any technical description. I identified and grouped the conflicts into three types of resolutions. Additionally, if the actions were irreversible an extra warning was added.
Testing & Results
I tested the copy and interactive prototypes with our superusers. The feedback was positive, with minor iterations.The build was very quick as the lead developer was deeply involved in the design process.
A month after launch, support tickets for Sync Conflict had been reduced by 98%.