MergeOS
The Team
Team Lead/Project Owner x 1 | Full Stack developer x 4 | UX/UI Designer x 1
The Problem
Clients have used Excel and Word to write client letters and reports, invoices, contracts and more.
Often involved a "master template" marked up with highlighted areas for where to paste the clients name, or where to insert the chart.
Hours have been wasted manually copying and pasting between CSV exports, customer databases and a myriad of other systems.
It’s not a unique solution however it’s a system that can be more efficient and approachable for small and medium businesses.
My Role
As the UX/UI Designer, assist with Market Research and analysis, User testing, User research
Redesign the current user interface and Create design processes and a design system
Work with and assist developers with Design direction.
Provide design assets and assist with branding direction.
MVP The Journey
What is MergeOS?
MergeOS automatically generates documents from the the user’s data, using a MS Word template to format the final document and an Excel document to do calculations or generate charts from the user’s data. It will then automatically email recipients the generated document and/or store the file in the user’s account.
Initial workflow/ Thinking
We re-designed features based off the user’s pain points. The goal was to enable users to automate their documentation process and auto generate anything that could be turned into templates.
Upon using the application there are four main steps involved
Create a Data table to hold information to be merged
Create an Excel template to be pre-process the data (optional)
Create a word document template to design what the final document will look like
Configure any notifications that should be sent for each merged document.
These steps make up a project. Projects contain all the configuration for generating one type of document.
User Research and Planning
The difference between the competitor products is that we cater specifically to our users needs by working closely and following how our users create templates for their clients and taking into consideration their daily patterns and existing tools as well as catering to their pain points.
Before MergeOS there were many previous iterations…
Formreporter / FormJazz / ReportJazz…
The task was to redesign what was already designed previously by the Team leader(non-designer).
MergeOS had gone through multiple name changes, starting with Formreporter, FormJazz, then ReportJazz and Finally MergeOS. Together with the Technical lead/Project owner, we co-designed the Balsamiq wireframes for MergeOS.
This was the first iteration of the application, my task was to redesign the front facing website as well as the application.
The Initial UI Design
Illustration / Assets
Below are a few selections from assets used in the application. They are created using a combination of tools from Adobe Creative Suite.
Reflection
MergeOS is still in it’s early stages. Although it is readily available to clients, ongoing user testing and user feedback is valuable to the growth and development of the product.
We are in the process of making the application cross platform. The intention is to continue with market research, A/B testing, user interviews and client feedback to improve the application.
As well as constantly improving the user experience of the application, naturally improvement of the user interaction follows.
Taking accessibility into account, the intention is to constantly look to improve the UI and make design processes scalable and more efficient.
Importing the Design System From XD to Figma
As the product (and possibly team) grows, so will the Design system.
Setting up a process that will make things easier not just to the individual but the team/company as a whole.
Not only will it is a collaborative tool that enables new designers to easily onboard but it provides developers easy access to designs in a CSS format