Sora Workflow Builder Redesign

Working with the founders, I led a team of designers to improve the workflow creation experience of HR automation software.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Rethinking the workflows

Sora is a SaaS company that automates tedious human resource tasks through simplified and streamlined workflows.

The existing workflow page is so demanding that it takes a Sora employee six weeks to create workflows for a new customer.

Over the course of three weeks, we redesigned Sora's workflow page to be more intuitive and scalable.

The interactive prototype above is scaled down for your viewing convenience.

Click here to see the full view.

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Sora workflow page before and after our redesign

Sora workflow page before our redesign

Workflows are so complex that the current page design feels like a never-ending scroll.

Cards lack important information like task assignees.

There aren't enough visual cues for task and subtask dependency.

It's difficult to find information on the page.

Sora workflow page after our redesign

An interactive timeline represents workflows chronologically, the same way HR professionals perceive their work.

A drag-and-drop library of task templates makes creating workflows an easy process.

Improved information architecture makes important information more prominent.

Color coding adds a visual connection between tasks and subtasks.

MY IMPACT

"Creating a workflow and editing a task was pretty easy and straightforward."

Sora Customer

"We've struggled with the workflow page for a while. New design will definitely help both our employees and customers. I love it!"

Sora CEO

New design well-received and under active development

From my testing, the redesign reduces the time needed to build a workflow from scratch significantly and has received very positive feedback from Sora users and employees.

As a result, Sora is actively implementing my design right now. Given that workflow management is such a core part of Sora, I'm confident that the new design will improve Sora's net promoter score, workflow creation success rate, and total time needed to onboard new customers, the three business goals I kept in my heart in the process and will monitor once the design is implemented.

My goal

My goal for the project was to redesign the workflow page so that HR managers can easily create and manage complex workflows using Sora.

Current Sora workflow dashboard. Click the image to enlarge

My role

I managed the project and led a team of four designers working directly with the founders.

My responsibilities included user research, market research, prototyping, wireframing, and testing.

Creating a new task in the current Sora design. Click the image to enlarge

My design process

Design process. Click the image to enlarge

WHAT IS SORA

Automate tedious HR tasks

Sora is a SaaS company for HR departments. People teams use Sora to connect HR tools, sync employee data, and automate HR processes.

Current Sora integrations. Click the image to enlarge

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Competitors aren't as flexible and customizable

"Onboarding employees is expensive but can make or break retention success."

"Creating a workflow from scratch is like doing the work of an entire team."

USER INTERVIEWS

Creating workflows is like the work of an entire team

I conducted five user interviews with HR professionals to understand their daily routines and the difficulties they face implementing workflows like new hire onboarding.

I also interviewed Sora's employees and customers to learn how users create workflows, their experience with Sora so far, and the issues with the workflow page.

Workflows have too many steps and change too fast.

USER FLOW

Updated user flow for workflow creation and editing

Updated Sora user flow. Click the image to enlarge

Click the image to enlarge

LO-FI WIREFRAMES

Four initial concepts for testing

Before putting a pen to paper, I researched how people organize and visualize information, which gave me inspiration for three concepts: workflow wizard, interactive table, and freehand creator. Additionally, we also liked another teammate's idea of a timeline.

Four redesign concepts. Click the image to enlarge

"I have a hard time starting off a new workflow. It's nice to see task options to drag and drop."

"It's difficult to say which one is my favorite because each design offers a feature that I'd like to use."

CONCEPT TESTING RESULTS

Users loved a little bit of everything

After turning the sketches into four concepts, I shared them with HR professionals, Sora customers, and founders, and gathered their feedback.

It turned out that everyone loved a little bit of everything, for example when creating a workflow from scratch, users wanted to have a workflow wizard to guide them; when editing an existing workflow, users wanted to see it as a timeline or a table to have a general overview.

MID-FI PROTOTYPE

Bringing the best together

Mid-fi prototype. Click here to see the full prototype

MID-FI PROTOTYPE TEST RESULTS

Users want more visual consistency and clarity

Visual inconsistency between tasks inside the toolkit and on the canvas.

Triggers are unclear and easily go unnoticed.

Participants are uncertain what "assignee" means and want a picture of whom a task is assigned to.

ACCESSIBILITY TESTING

Oops, something is not right...

When I tested the color palette provided by Sora, I found that there were several areas where type and color failed to meet accessibility standards.

Type and colors provided by Sora

Our updated accessible colors

Our update on type and color to meet the accessibility requirements. Click the image to enlarge

STYLE GUIDE AND UI KIT

Updated style guide for Sora

My updates to Sora's style guide and UI kit. Click the image to enlarge

HI-FI PROTOTYPE

Bringing everything to hi-fi

Sora hi-fi demo. Click here to see the interactive prototype.

HI-FI USABILITY TEST RESULTS

Some elements are still not discoverable in hi-fi

My hi-fi prototype received positive feedback from test users, including the founders. There were still a few minor visibility issues, but fortunately, no major usability problems.