MANAGER EXPERIENCE REDESIGN
The manager persona at Degreed had been vastly underserved for years with only a few tools to support managers when working with their team utilizing the Degreed platform. This project focused on uncovering and building out the manager persona, proposing new ideas to support this persona, designing new pages and flows for managers, and iterating on those designs through a potential release of new functionality including a manager dashboard and more actionable data for managers (expected launch in 2025).
Company: Degreed
Role: Product Designer
Contributions: Lead research, analysis, ideation, designs, iterations, and user testing
Tools Used: Dovetail, Maze, Confluence, Jira, Figma
Research & Analysis
Research included two rounds of surveys for both internal and external client managers and a two follow-up rounds of user interviews to better understand the manager persona, current pain points, and potential wishlist items. Analysis showed several common themes for managers including the need for more actionable data and a greater focus on user compliance tracking and an easier way to support team members with their learning goals.
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I developed the "Manager's Hierarchy of Needs" (loosely based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) after analyzing manager persona research to help prioritize these areas of functionality through the design process.
Themes from historic and new research around the manager persona compiled in Dovetail
Manager's "Hierarchy of Needs" based on research and used to help prioritize efforts and UX flow throughout the Manager Dashboard
Ideation & Design
Initial design wireframes and explorations began with marketing-centric views for teaser events held in 2023-2024. These designs, along with research and analysis, became the basis for further iterations. Iterations focused on each area of need for managers, prioritized based on research, including compliance/assignment tracking, learning goals, top actions for managers, and skill growth.
Previous version of "Skill Coach" with no dashboard or actionable data - this had very low usage based on research and analytics
Initial low fidelity paper wireframe explorations for the concept of an actionable Manager "Dashboard"
Low fidelity digital wireframes explorations for placement on a manager "Assignments" page - focus on highest priority of need vs. visual interest
Iteration & Outcome
Initial high level conceptual mock-ups were used at company client-facing presentations throughout 2023-2024. Designs were iterated on throughout 2024-2025 to fine-tune and create more realistic flows based on additional research and alignment with design systems and adjusted scope. The Manager Assignments page was implemented and launched in February 2025.
The full Manager Experience and dashboard project is currently being prioritized for final production readiness and a dashboard V1 is tentatively scheduled to be released in 2025. Additional iteration and user testing will continue through to the official launch and beyond for further releases.
High-level conceptual mock-ups of a Manager Dashboard and Assignments page
Dashboard concept currently in iteration for a 2025 release
Assignments page released February 2025