Consolidate the Setup Experience For Omni-Channel.
Intership project in Salesforce
DURATION
MAY - AUG, 2020
(12 weeks)
MY ROLE
Product Design Intern
TEAM
Service Cloud UX
PM + Solution Engineers + Technical Writer
intro.
Creating delightful configuration experience for Salesforce Admins
This summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to join Salesforce as a product design intern. I was part of Service Cloud’s Core Service team where I focused on creating delightful configuration experience for Salesforce Administrators.
It was an adventurous journey, where I directly dived into the deepest bottom of Salesforce -- the Setup App. I worked closely with product managers, solution engineers, and technical writers to re-imagine a consolidated experience for Omni-Channel Setup.
takeaways.
1. Always telling the people story
Setup Salesforce isn't an easy thing. Depending on business needs, it might take from weeks to years to implement the system. It takes more than 60 hours for my target persona -- Salesforce admins -- to get the certification.
Similarly, it took me around 3 weeks to figure out why those configurations are engineered that way. During design critique sessions, I found it quite challenging to communicate the whole system in a 5-minute timespan.
Then I realized that I should tell the story of PEOPLE, not the system. With limited resources, I collected people stories from workshops, conversations, and community posts. Then, I wrapped the challenge within a vivid story, and delivered it in my final presentation. The presentation got very positive feedback, even my friend without Salesforce knowledge can understand the challenge I was facing!
2. Getting along with a design system
While I was working as a single designer in my team(most of the time!), I constantly dreamed about working in a company that has an established, comprehensive design system — life must be 10 times easier with that consistency and elegancy.
Working with a design system reminds me of building Lego blocks: standardized Lego blocks did make the building process easier, at the same time, they also bring in a lot of constraints.
Design system is not static, they grow organically. Like Salesforce’s release timeline, Lightning Design System updates three times a year. During that timespan, designers contribute to the design system by introducing new patterns, icons, and emerging user scenarios.
3. Learning how to make an impact
My previous work experience was all in small companies and tight teams, where the expectation for designers(at least for design interns) heavily stress on pixel output: deliver quality work before the deadline, make sure my PM is satisfied with the solution, and make sure engineers build it the same way I designed it.
During my time at Salesforce, I was constantly inspired by other designers amplifying their impact beyond delivering excellent pixels. I’ve learned how to connect resources across orgs, how to maintain relationships with many stakeholders, how to pave way for new designers, how to add building blocks to the design system, and how to push a great vision forward.