Challenge

H5 wanted to develop a line of products to complement their existing services and, as standalone, self-serve Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings. The company’s leadership and product teams needed an experienced product and UX strategy consultant to help them conceive, design, evaluate, and validate product ideas and concepts that were in line with their business objectives and marketplace needs.

Approach

Experience by Design (EBD) product design consultant kicked off the project with stakeholder and subject matter expert (SME) work sessions. Our consultant also reviewed the H5 product team’s preliminary product concepts, and conducted a brief study of the eDiscovery industry to identify key players and trends, and to understand common industry roles, tools, processes, and pain points.

After aligning on the product vision, and expectations about scope and schedule, our consultant kicked off the design process. First, our consultant created concepts for a responsive container for desktop and tablet that would support a single H5 product or all of them. In addition to functioning on a standalone basis, the container would also be compatible with kCura’s Relativity – a widely used platform among legal researchers and investigators in the eDiscovery field.

After defining a container concept for the H5 product suite, our consultant worked collaboratively with the H5 product team and UX designer to ideate experiences and product features that would help eDiscovery professionals do the following:

• Process large, unstructured repositories with the assistance of algorithmic logic to identify potential files of interest.
• Easily traverse, review, and tag relevant files in large, diverse file sets. Concepts around AI and machine learning were considered.
• Search and refine relevant results. The team explored voice-prompted, natural language query with audio feedback concepts.
• Manage, track, and access assigned projects from a single place.

Our consultant used low-fidelity concept flows and user interface (UI) storyboards to sketch initial concepts. Together with H5’s product SMEs, our consutant used the sketches to flesh out task flows and interactive wireframes to structure and present information and functionality in visually-rich and meaningful ways. The goal was to be novel and engaging, while removing friction from work processes in ways that would:

• Increase productivity and efficiency of those professionals experienced in using eDiscovery tools
• Enable rapid trial, adoption, and self-service use among newcomers and those less experienced with the toolsets and processes

Once the storyboards and low-fidelity prototypes had been fleshed out, H5’s product team used them to present the product concepts to H5’s executives, internal stakeholders, and senior members of the engineering team for feedback, guidance, and approval.

From these presentations, a single product was identified for H5’s initial entry into the market. H5’s product manager and our consultant were tasked to define an MVP and further define UI, features, and functionality as inputs for engineering to scope and build. Our consultant also worked with H5’s product manager and members of the extended product team to outline a strategy and plan for external UX research to evaluate and iterate product UI, features, and functionality among existing and potential partners and clients pre- and post-launch.

Result

Our product design consultant delivered UI designs and prototypes for a suite of products and a UX research strategy to help H5’s product team evaluate, iterate, and refine the product UI and features across the entire product lifecycle.

The prototypes and research strategy, coupled with H5’s industry knowledge and experience, resulted in rightly-aligned, user-friendly products that meet the needs of both seasoned eDiscovery professionals and law enforcement professionals with comparatively limited knowledge of eDiscovery tools and processes.

These products helped H5 realize new business opportunities and revenue streams. Moreover, the effort provided new tools that improved the operational performance of H5’s internal practice.

List of Services

• Industry + Competitor Research
• Concept Modeling + Alignment
• Brainstorming, Collaborative Design Sessions + Product Ideation
• Process, Workflow + Task Analysis
• IA, Lean UX + Product Design
• Prototypes
• Product Road Map + Feature Prioritization
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• UX Research + Product Validation Strategy