Cutting management time by simplifying roles and permissions for a diagnostic app.

Connect app before integration and after.

B2B / B2C  |  Information Architecture  |  Journey Mapping  |  Product Vision & Strategy  |  Stakeholder Engagement  |  User Research  |  Design  |  Workshop Facilitation

Product
Connect App

Project Goal
Streamlining user roles & permissions to reduce project management time.

Client
McLean & Company offers diagnostic tools, frameworks and consulting.

Primary end user
Project Coordinator (staff)

My role
Lead UX Designer

Team
Product Manager, Stakeholders, Lead Developer, Architect, UX & UI Design team.

Timeline
6 months

Secondary end user
HR professional & C-Suit members(client)

Context

The Connect app needed a major revamp to fix messy user permission and reduce management time.

What’s Connect?

Connect is a smart survey platform that helps organizations run surveys and gather employee feedback easily. It turns raw data into actionable insights, making it easier for HR professionals to spot areas for improvement and boost workforce engagement.

The Problem

The Connect diagnostics app faced significant hurdles, including :

  • User permissions were managed across multiple locations.
  • Clients and peers relied heavily on coordinators (staff) due to limited roles and permissions.
  • Coordinators often had to impersonate users, raising compliance and data privacy concerns.
  • Clients lacked visibility and autonomy, which prevented them from delegating work to their teams.

Clients have the autonomy to manage their team roles and permissions, which has cut project management time significantly at every stage of the survey journey.

Key User Outcomes:
Quality Impact:

Management Time

Clients now have the autonomy to manage their team roles and permissions, leading to a significant reduction in project management time at every stage of the survey journey.


Data Privacy Risk

Coordinators frequently had to impersonate users, which posed a privacy risk. By giving clients full autonomy, we have minimized this risk and improved compliance.

Quantity Impact:

Reduction

Training time for new project coordinators (PC) is projected to decrease from 6 months to 2 months.


Saving

Time spent by PC managing client participant data is expected to drop from 8 hours to 3 hours.


Saving

Time spent by PC on copying and pasting translations for a single language is anticipated to decrease. With 11 translations, this could result in a total time savings of 11 hours.

Process
Project Phases & Frameworks

Research & Discovery

  • Review existing research and find gaps.
  • Journey Map and demos.
  • Architecture audit.
  • Interface accessibility evaluation.
  • Hotjar recording analysis.
  • Stakeholder Presentation

Defining & Integration

  • Double diamond and product strategy alignment.
  • OKRs benchmark.
  • Back-end integrated architecture.
  • Roles & permissions matrix.
  • Stakeholder Presentation

Prototype &
Test

  • Flow diagraming & user story documentation.
  • Wireframing
  • Testing
  • Stakeholder Presentation

Implement & Handoff

  • Feedback adjustment.
  • Handoff to the design team.
  • Final report presentation for stakeholder engagement.

To tackle these issues, I kicked things off with product vision workshops to align with stakeholders and secure their support for a clear roadmap to our MVP 1. I delved into existing research, facilitated journey mapping sessions, and integrated a back-end architecture that supports the new roles and permissions system. This collaborative journey involved mapping user flows, evaluating interface accessibility, and testing wireframes with key users, ensuring we stayed on track and addressed everyone’s needs while continuously engaging stakeholders through presentations.

Review findings from previous experience map research to identify gaps.

Prioritized user stories for MVP1

Converge, document and prioritize user stories throughout the whole survey journey for key users.

Back-end integrated architecture

Permission modules audit and card sorting sessions.

Flows and backlog documentation

Initially, we created flows paired with jobs to-be-done to verify design concepts and processes with stakeholders.
Solution

Granting access to peers and clients in 1 place.

Improvements:

Home Shortcut – Quick access to the “Manage Users” page.

Manage User Page – A one-stop shop for user creation and edits.

User Search – finding an existing user among hundreds of participant users.

Custom User Roles – Create new user roles specifically tailored to each client or program.

Role Type Tooltips – Clear descriptions for each role type.

Flexible Permissions – Adjust roles and permissions anytime.

Client Notifications – Clients are automatically notified of new access.

Wireframe: Users can grant access to features and adjust permission levels accordingly.

High-resolution prototype created using the new MCO design system, ready for handover to the Product Design team.

Curious about how I got here?