App Critique: ZenDesk support ticketing system

ZenDesk’s ticketing ecosystem is jam-packed with integrations, fancy workflows, and queueing that goes beyond anyone’s mental model all for a scaled team to handle hundreds (likely more) of tickets daily. I used to work on a support engineering team that first used HelpScout and then switched to ZenDesk by our manager’s request. I probably spent close to an average of about 4–6 hours a day in ZenDesk. And I couldn’t stand it. I took the photo above and scribbled all over it almost a year ago. My disdain for this software still bothers me — clearly. That’s enough hateful comments out of me, let’s think about a solution (or solutions) to this ecosystem.

Figuring out the user and their priorities

Since I was a power user for a few months, I’m going to use my own experiences and opinions as user validity — though I might be a bit biased.

What’s the main goal of a user?

The primary goal of any Support Engineer is to help the person who wrote in with their issue with as much relevant information as possible and in a timely and efficient manner.

What’s the value add with ZenDesk in particular?

The value add from ZenDesk is its ecosystem. It has a store of ZenDesk made and 3rd party developer plugins that can be utilized from everything to queue management to workflow automations to other app integrations.

What about ZenDesk’s UI and UX prevents a Support team from achieving that goal?

For me, the complexity of the UI was something that was annoying but it’s also something you build a memory of fairly quickly. Similar to a typing keyboard, there’s a lot going on, but you get used to it. However, what differs from the typing keyboard is that the ZenDesk UI had a lot of noh-related information spewed on the page. This forced my brain to context switch every time I glance dout of the main window. ZenDesk doesn’t offer any customisation with window sizing or a “lights out” or “focus mode” that would allow a user to focus on actually answering the question. The ZenDesk UI is so busy and it’s lack of hierarchy made me feel like everything was competing for my attention at the same time.

Redesigning the ZenDesk interface

If I were tasked with redesigning ZenDesk, I think my plan would roughly be this:

• Conduct further user research. I worked on smaller team (<10) and fielded with technical related questions. I think it’s more common for larger teams and non-technical questions.
• Recreate a simplified mental model. The current one has a lot to juggle at once with several tabs and a drop down of different tickets, parsed ticket information that is arbitrary at a glance but useful for data collection, several unrelated 3rd party integrations and, most importantly, the question. If the user testing validated that blast of information increased the amount of time spent on context switching or looking for what they needed, then I would highly recommend simplifying this screen.
• Brainstorm and present the north stars. I think there’s significance in the why behind design decisions. When I run review sticky note sessions, I notice there’s a general feeling of what’s a good idea and what’s a less good idea. But I’m more interested in why this idea over that idea and does it help solve the issue the user gave? While another workflow automation might help decrease time spent on ticket by 18%, does it add more to the mental model of the user, or does it either not change the difficulty or increase the difficulty of responding to a ticket. While a “shot clock” in the ticket may add pressure to the Support Engineer on it, there isn’t a correlation let alone a causation that a timer improves quality of responses. Referring back to the problem statement, does the user value quality or quantity of responses? What does the manager care about? Why?
• Sketch, sketch, sketch! This is the low-fidelity to high fidelity phase for me.
• Communicate analysis. I always make time to put together a document or a presentation on the changes made, what those changes mean and how they can be further developed on.

I listed out many of the major pain points we laid out. I’ll look for a ZenDesk ticket without any customer information and I can add a part 2 onto this blog. Stay tuuuuuuned.