Mido
Re-designing a digital document sharing platform to enhance the experience of its users.
scope of work: UX – UI – Visual design
tools: pen & paper, Figma, Adobe Illustrator
years: 2021/22
Challenge
To facilitate
remote document sharing
Mido is an online space devoted to sharing documents, including confidential and sensitive ones. This concept has become especially interesting in the times when, due to the pandemic, direct contacts were limited or sometimes even impossible. The Mido platform that followed an app had to be a secure and easy to use tool allowing users to share any document and to be fully in control of who, for how long, and to what extent can have access to their documents.
To make an advanced technical solution accessible to any user at any place. Any time.
The idea behind Mido was to create a tool that can be easily used by any user regardless of their location or their digital literacy. That meant aiming for a clean and inviting interface that would be not only easy to understand and use, but also working fast under any circumstances.
Another thing to consider was that the app already had a group of users for whom a radical change of the visual design might be too confusing or frustrating.
Solution
Starting point
Since this project is based on an existing application, the information from the Client as to the app’s functionality and usability was key. Discussions with the Client and getting to know the app allowed me to determine which features within the platform required most work, and what new ones had to be introduced in order to provide users with the best experience possible.
UX PROCESS/PROJECT TIMELINE
POINTS TO BE ADDRESSED
During the research phase I was able to define some users’ pain points associated with sharing sensitive personal information both off- and online.
These pain points were later considered and addressed during the design phase of the project.
SECURITY
Users are very concerned about how secure their data is and they may be hesitant before they decide to use an app for storing and sharing sensitive private information.
CONTROL
When it comes to private information and confidential documents, people are afraid to lose control over who and how might be using them.
TIME & MONEY
Very often documents need to be delivered to a recipient as quickly as possible, which usually means spending time and/or money that people would rather spend on other things.
EASE OF USE
When users face difficulties completing a task they get frustrated, which often might lead to aborting a task and discarding the frustrating tool.
DIGITAL LITERACY
Using technologically advanced applications sometimes requires skills that average people, who only use computers to send mails or read the news just do not possess.
IA
People often get overwhelmed by a complicated website or app structure and get frustrated when they have to navigate through many long pages or overloaded screens in order to complete a simple task.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Research insights and the Client’s expectations were the starting points for defining design principles for the project.
Users first: design for needs
Don’t make room for privacy breaches
Put users in control
One task at a time
Keep it clean and simple
Continuity matters
CORE USER FLOWS
To determine what pages and forms will be needed I designed user flows for all critical tasks. Each task was broken down into user journeys through the steps and screens a user will encounter while completing the task.
In accordance with the design principles, the flows are thought out as short and as intuitive as possible.
DESIGN
WIREFRAMES
It's all about documents
The main purpose of Mido application is to allow its users manage and share their documents in an easy and secure way. Therefore the ‘Documents’ section is crucial, as this is where all documents can be easily found, filtered and managed.
Making it efficient and easy
Adding a document in the app is quite a complex task and requires taking various actions. To help users understand what they need to do, the whole process was split into a few easy steps, each of which is clear and straightforward.
Additionally, to add a document only the basic information needs to be filled in, and the rest is optional at this point.
Another handy feature is the possibility to rename attachment files and to add descriptions for them.
ADDING A DOCUMENT
REQUESTING A DOCUMENT
Making it efficient and easy
To make using the application easy to use and navigate, all its core functionality and important information is available from the dashboard. From there documents can be viewed, added and requested, and hubs and contacts can be accessed. Also, basic actions can be performed on the newest documents without the need of going to documents’ pages.
When logging into the application for the first time, empty states messages are shown to the user, which are accompanied by buttons allowing to add a document or invite a contact to a hub.
DASHBOARD
STYLE GUIDE
Outcome
Secure, easy, usable
The new version of the platform is cleaner and more functional than the old one. It is also more intuitive which will help users navigate through the platform and complete tasks with ease.
The minimalistic design serves the functionality of the platform, it allows users to focus on completing their tasks without being distracted by illustrations or overwhelming graphics.
Next steps
More accessibility
Due to technical reasons only some of accessibility issues were addressed in this design, and the others, like language options and screen reader compatibility should be considered as soon as possible.
© Jagna Birecka, 2022
Other projects:
