A tale of two personas: Designing for admin and end user

Good design strives to meet the needs of every user it serves. This gets tricky, especially in the realm of mobile device management (MDM) and managed apps where an admin and an end user may have expectations that are at odds with each other.

Consider admin Nadia and end user Mark.

Nadia is tasked with deploying applications and services to user groups (including people like Mark) within her organization. She would like,

• to be able to modify brand elements within the deployed products
• to control every aspect of the product that users see and interact with
• fewer IT tickets

Mark is an end user who uses a variety of apps, services, and other resources to get work done. Here is Mark’s wish list.

• Ability to personalize product experience
• Access to all content and features that are relevant and useful
• Smooth and seamless experience (i.e. minimal errors and notifications)

Key goals of MDM include maintaining confidentiality, integrity, and availability of both data and resources. As designers, we aim to meet these goals, and provide a simple, unambiguous, and informed user experience.

Security

Take the case of Boxer, an email, calendar and contacts app.

There is a security feature in Boxer that restricts Mark from switching from his work (managed) account to his personal (unmanaged) account if he is in the middle of composing an email that includes an attachment. This feature was implemented in order to prevent the passing of potentially sensitive information from work accounts to personal ones. Nadia can activate the feature through a setting in the admin console.

Keeping Mark informed is an important design goal, and there are multiple ways this can be achieved. For instance, a notification message that shows up at the point of switching accounts is a viable option. A visual cue (e.g. disabled control) can be also employed to guide Mark toward understanding how the setting works. This visual cue can take the form of a lock icon placed alongside the account name to further indicate that the switch-to account is locked.

An informational UI element is a handy tool to convey a design “restriction” to a user. This feature may be enabled elsewhere in the product, hence the need to inform Mark about the particular use case at key points in the experience.

Branding & Customization

Workspace One Intelligent Hub is an app used by organizations to manage employee access to devices, applications, and other resources.

Admins like Nadia often ask for the ability to change colors within the app. Switching out app colors is mainly intended for marketing and/or branding purposes. However, changing a background (or foreground) color isn’t always a simple task. Design colors are carefully chosen, taking into account contrast, readability and other factors that are significant aspects of accessible design. Therefore, it may so happen that Nadia selects a custom color within the app that makes the design inaccessible for some users.

One solution is to “containerize” all foreground elements, meaning encapsulate font, text size and colors, icons, etc. into a “container” such that Nadia’s background color changes don’t impact Mark’s ability to view the foreground design and text elements.

Nadia can add any image and/or color as the background so long as she selects white or black as the foreground and text color. Depending on the selected foreground text and color, the “container” itself is given the opposite color so that the text is legible in all scenarios.

Below is an example of how “containerization” is applied within the Hub interface.

As designers, we strive to keep accessibility front and center of the design process. Even as we support admin users like Nadia who wish to customize their app experience (by way of color customization), we want to account for any and every option that she selects, so that the most optimum user experience can be implemented.

Content-driven Access

Admins like Nadia use the Content app to push documents and other files that Mark needs to view. For his part, Mark uses Content to access files in other repositories (e.g. Google Drive, team SharePoint folders). He can also create personal documents within Content, and share them elsewhere.

There are two design goals here.

• Mark needs easy, efficient access to all documents that he needs.
• Nadia needs to ensure that all important material is available to Mark in a timely fashion.

Sometimes there are documents that Mark is mandatorily required to always have on his managed device. Some documents require him to send an express acknowledgment after he has viewed them, while others may be less crucial. Depending on the scenario, Nadia may end up sending many files to the Content app on Mark’s device, making it a challenge for him to access his own documents.

To resolve this situation, Content app was redesigned to include two main sections within the primary navigation system. The first section, titled “For You” is where Mark can find all files that are sent by Nadia.

All files that need to be reviewed are placed in “Your Files to Review.” Other files can be accessed in “Featured Files.” The second section, titled “Favorites” is where Mark can store his oft-used files and folders for quick and easy reference.

In order to ensure that the Content app serves the needs of both user personas, the design team devised a content organizing system that aims to provide both Nadia and Mark easy, quick access to relevant content in a timely manner.

Final Thoughts

Designing an app to serve two (or more) categories of users is sometimes a tricky endeavor. Design tools (e.g. file/folder views, icons, timely notification messages) are helpful when it comes to providing a clean user experience that meets the expectations of all groups that use the app. An important aspect of the process is enabling users to clearly articulate their objectives. When that is successfully done, the job of design is greatly simplified.

Writing: Lakshmi Jagad
Inputs: Rohit Vairamohan
Illustrations: Kira Chung, Andrew Munoz