The Strategy for Atruity’s Strategic Planning Tool — A UX Case Study

Timing: 2 weeks

Deliverables

• Competitor research and analysis
• Usability testings & iterations
• Recommendations for direction, product roadmap with immediate and future next steps
• Sitemap/IA, user flows, sketches, wireframes
• Interactive Axure prototype

After years of business consulting experience, the founders of Atruity have found a need in the market for an online tool kit that will help small businesses develop a strategic plan that will ultimately lead them to success. When I found the gap in the market, I understood that the problem I wanted to prevent was small businesses from failing due to the lack of strategic development and team communication of actionable goals.

Research & Analysis

Competitor research and analysis played a key role in helping me understand what I needed to solve for. Much to my initial dismay, I found that companies like OnStrategy, Workflow, Growthink, Aha and Monday offered tool kits that included business plan development, project planning and management, team collaboration and dashboard services. That led me to believe that I’d be creating a product that already existed.

However, I was able to find a gap in the market in which there WAS NOT a product that offered businesses a strategic plan development tool that allowed them to collaborate on (yay to creating a competitor analysis chart that I will include once I make it pretty — don’t want to blind any eyes with my chicken scratch)! That helped soothe my soul but I knew I needed to continue research in order to understand what made a workplace successful because that was the kind of product I wanted to develop. I found that a successful workplace was one that valued reciprocated communication between higher and lower level employees, team collaboration and clear, actionable tasks.

To piece all the research together, a SWOT analysis of the market was conducted:

When I felt confident about the research obtained, I was able to clearly define the problem and design for the solution.

Problem

Small businesses fail due to the lack of strategic development and team communication of actionable goals.

Solution

Develop a tool kit that will help small businesses develop a strategic plan and allow for clear communication and collaboration.

Information Architecture

With all the information I collected, I conducted several open card sorts to see the possible ways that I could organize my site. The information collected helped me streamline

Open Card Sorts

Wire Flows

Once I understood which features I wanted to prioritze and include, I roughly sketched out wire flows to help frame the design process. These sketches don’t reflect my final product, which will be apparent in the following photos.

Site Map

Part One — Individual Prototype Development

This project was a two part project, in which I created my version of Atruity’s strategic planning tool and then was grouped up with two other indivduals to collaborate on the final product. Below are screenshots of the initial toolkit that highlighted the customizable dashboard that allowed users to easily develop a business strategy and collaborate with their teams.

Dashboard that users can customize - add, delete and rearrange items - based on roles/priorities.

This is the “Collaborate” section that allows teams to view and collaborate on goals and tasks.

Part Two — Group Collaboration and Development the Final Prototype

During the final week of this project, we were assigned to groups and tasked to collaborate and develop a final toolkit for Atruity. Bringing all our developed products to the table was initially challenging to sort through, but after sitting down and flushing out all our features, we were able to successfully combine our products into one. Once we understood how to communicate the importance of certain features, we executed a hand-off with a team of web developers and presented our final Axure prototype along with the web dev’s MVP to the client.

Final Axure Prototype

Next Steps

As next steps, I would like to continue with usability testing to see how to further iterate this strategic planning and collaboration tool. I would also like to allow for outside product integration such as Quickbooks so companies can access all the information they need when using this tool.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this case study! Please feel free to leave any feedback or comments. Have a great day!