GoCanvas UX & product writing.
Writing about a product and engaging with its users on a constant basis tends to make you knowledgeable about that product, how people are using it, what they’re trying to accomplish, and what isn’t working for them. Because of my foundational knowledge, early on in my tenure at GoCanvas, product managers started bringing me in to inspect, analyze, and ultimately write and re-write the words in the product itself.
Onboarding.
GoCanvas is a complex product with a steep initial learning curve; you’re just staring at a blank page with a lot of bells and whistles. The challenge was to improve our conversion rate with a new onboarding process, including a conversational intro, updated orientation guides, and a checklist. This is the current version of the flow; it went through many rounds of revision and usability testing to get to this point.
App & Play Stores.
Conversions from both the Google Play and Apple App Stores historically was extremely low. In fact, one of my first forays into writing for the product team was assisting with a mobile-first form building tool that was launched in 2018 in an effort to improve those numbers. For that launch, we re-conceptualized our appearance in the places where users would go to download the app, including new screenshots and a completely new description. The result was higher download rates in both places.
Feature naming.
One of the biggest barriers to entry with the product is the naming and labeling of features and settings. Terms like “reference data” and “segmented controls,” and even the core of our product (mobile forms that we refer to as apps) are confusing. As new features have been released, I have been active in naming them. Segmented controls became single-choice boxes, static image stayed consistent with static text and image field labels, apps are slowly becoming forms and, well, we’re still working on reference data.
Buttons, labels, tooltips, and error messages.
Products are filled with copy. The simplest button can become a confusing, unused piece of functionality with the wrong verbiage. My approach is simple and aligns and user-centered design: how would I think of this (or respond to it) if I was in the middle of trying to accomplish a task? How are users already thinking of this (for that, scouring support tickets and feature requests came in incredibly handy)? What does this thing actually DO?