Linksys Cloud Manager is a B2B product for managing wireless access points.
HomeWRK diagram
In addition to networking, it made sense for Cloud Manager to solve for more niche scenarios.
For example, a hotel that provides temporary internet for guests.
Or a university that wants a branded log in screen when someone connects to their network.
To support these niche use cases, we created add-on services, billed à la carte.
Our latest add-on service, Linksys HomeWRK, was for supporting remote workers.
A company can order 500 routers, upload their VPN information through Linksys Cloud Manager, and ship those routers direct to employee homes from the factory. Employees can then connect work devices to work wifi at home, enjoying built-in VPN and other security protocols.
Capitalizing on the influx of remote workers, it was a quick product to market, utilizing much of the existing structure in Cloud Manager. Compared to other add-on services, however, its setup and management was more complex.
In our beta release, we received consistent but vague feedback that using HomeWRK was confusing.
The product manager requested UX improvements, specifically for navigation and usability.
To get started, my first goal is to have real understanding of the product—not just typical use cases, but the edge cases, frequency of each, and the relationship of this add-on service to others. The tools I like to use for this are site maps and and interaction flows.
These artifacts serve as great talking points with other team members, level-setting everyone’s understanding and revealing holes in the design.
Next, I wanted to get more articulate feedback from users.
I put together a prototype of the current implementation’s key flows. This test would be administered in a 1on1 zoom session where users would perform onboarding and key tasks.*
*Test recruitment was with usertesting.com, for IT personnel who had experience supporting remote workers.
Making improvements
Improvements would be tested with the same scenarios and recruitment tasks.
Final navigation
The reality of development is releasing in stages. After implementing the easier fixes, we were able to implement the larger navigation changes in subsequent releases:
Results
Given the early stage of the HomeWRK product, we could only rely on the beta testers’ feedback which expressed improved usability. The PM was confident in the improvements and gave the green light for implementation.