Designing internal tools
Yuchi Chen
28 Jul 2023
What are internal tools?
Internal tools are internally-facing software developed and utilised within an organization. They range from database GUIs to employee wikis, and are highly-tailored to an organizations processes. In my experience as a product designer in the banking industry, we had internal tools dedicated to every step of the data implementation, from database collection, to data processing, modelling, application integration and data visualization. Some other typical examples include Content Management Systems, CRM Systems, Admin Panel, Approval Apps and so on.
Importance of internal tooling
Internal tools have much lower visibility than customer-facing products, so they tend to be overlooked by organizations. Many companies don’t have dedicated teams and design efforts to optimize and maintain internal tools, letting the products grow into cluttered feature factory with confusing user experiences, which in turn makes it increasingly difficult for employees to serve customer needs or make business decisions.
As a matter of fact, they are usually crucial players of cooperate digital transformation and in a way determines the acuteness of business decisions. This is because the goal of internal tools essentially gear around productivity and performance optimization, leading to a reduced opportunity cost in staffing, development and time.
Challenges of designing internal tools
Interdisciplinary knowledge
Because internal tools are heavily customized to specific user roles, designers working on these tools need very specific skillsets to succeed on these projects. Aside from product design, they usually need to have interdisciplinary knowledge such as service design principles, performance management, operational processes, technical or industry-related concepts and possess a lot of systematic product thinking.
Resisting feature factory
On top of all this, designers need to continually strive to keep the interface simple and usable as more and more features get crammed into the screen. Very often, requirements from direct users can become irresistible as they have the incentives to improve the product they rely on at work. However it can get messy when designers fail to critically evaluate the fundamental roots behind these user requirements and follow them blindly.
Tips for designing internal tooling
Research agenda
User research is the best way to fill up knowledge gap for designers with a lack of interdisciplinary knowledge. Hers is a recommended research framework that designers could adopt in early phases of design:
Research Method: Face-to-face interviews
Research Objectives: Different User roles
Scope of responsibilities
Associated tasks
Inputs & outcomes of user tasks
Dependent information needed for user tasks (e.g. information, data, verbal communication)
Areas tend to make mistakes
Most frustrating parts of the task
Constructive suggestion
Mind that face-to-face interviews is arguably the best method of research for several reasons. Firstly it is beneficial to spark in-depth understanding of unfamiliar information, secondly it is the most effective in receiving the emotional expression of users, last but not least it is potentially more engaging and responsive compared to surveys. Different from consumer facing products wherein we generalize demographics and behavioural variables of users, for internal tooling we want to focus on user roles, the responsibilities and relevant tasks of each role.
Here I recommend designers to implement research in stages:
Preliminary material collection: organizes the company-related documents such as: main business, business process, department framework, financial accounting system, business job responsibility system, etc.
Individual communication: communicate directly with relevant personnel on a certain issue or business processing.
Meetings and discussions: For cross-functional issues, bring relevant personnel to understand the situation of these businesses.
Research Process
After interview agenda is prepared, we are ready to enter the interview stage. Generally speaking, it is beneficial to have two interviewers, one is responsible for controlling flow of the entire interview, the other is responsible for assisting in missing areas, or supplementing when important concerns arise during the interview. When the user description on key issues appear ambiguous during the interview, it is important to verify your own assumptions, in order to comprehend and refine user descriptions. There are generally several scenarios for research regarding internal tooling:
When users complain
During the interview process, designers must keep a clear mind with a brisk rhythm, this will help us identify deviated information. When deviations occur, the interviewees must be pulled back to the interview or stopped in time; otherwise, there will be a risk of lengthy interviews or uninformative interview results.
When users do not cooperate
During the interview, designers may encounter situations where users do not cooperate with the interview at all. In situations like this, it might be helpful to ask questions in the form of asking for advice. The most important point is: we need to think about the real reason for the conflict or non-cooperation; after knowing the reason, we can find a targeted solution; of course, leveraging the impact leadership is a shortcut, but it is best to try to solve it yourself.
When research is not in-depth enough
There might be times when the research is not in-depth enough to dig out the information we needed. For instances like this, it could be useful to prepare for a second round of research. It is important that prior to the second round of research, the team should organize all the missing information, on top of that, it is essential to have an optimized agenda at hand based on the results of the first round of research.
Synthesizing research findings
In the previous steps, we have been collecting all kinds of information. Now we need to synthesize the information collected, distill key information, points of uncertainties, and the alternating relationship between information; refine and comprehend the information against our preset goals. Often times there may be doubts or omissions in the first round of research. If there are difficulties filling in the gaps based on the research findings, a second round of research could be considered. The second round of research could be in the form of discussions as this can be .
The outputs and deliverables for this steps could include:
Clearly present the information we collect and clarify how they are related:
Business composition / relationship diagram (cross-responsibility flowchart);
User journey, presenting a high-level view of the user's overall experience;
Task flow, providing a more detailed view of specific tasks or goals;
Stakeholder relationship diagram, illustrating organizational relationships between user roles;
Clarification of business metrics;
Further refinements on user goals and pain points, it is important to find entry points to figure out where the problems, conflicts, and unmet needs lie.
Collaborating with other systems
In the early stage of the project, we need to understand the possible collaboration with external systems (teams), and what kind of connection or docking method needs to be established. The important thing here is that we need to grasp what may affect the progress of the project.
Objectives: Who are the systems/teams that we need to collaborate with?
Input/output relationship: What do we need from them? What do we need to supply for them?
Docking method: e.g. API, file transimission.
Liaison colleague
Relevant documentation
Note: It is necessary to understand the potential risks that may affect the progress of this project. Any ambiguities or uncertainties may be threats to the progress.