Balto Playbook Editor
Optimizing the workflow to enable managers to focus on the tasks at hand
The fundamental problem that Balto Real-time Guidance (RTG) addresses is that contact center agents often find it difficult to keep track of their primary talking points during calls. RTG enables agents to easily manage their call flow, with helpful reminders along the way. In Balto Cloud, managers write content that provides structure and keeps agents on track during their calls. Playbook content is the foundational value driver for our customers, so the manager experience and usability of the playbook editor are crucial, while keeping in mind that the redesign needs to scale for future features on the roadmap.
MY ROLE
As the sole designer, I regularly walked through my designs with stakeholders and the team. I led the research initiative and conducted user interviews and usability testing to validate the design, working cross-functionally to make sure design components are cohesive and will scale for future features.
TEAM
1 Product Manager + 4 Engineers
TIMELINE
July – September 2022
The Challenge
How can we optimize a manager’s experience so the editor becomes more intuitively usable?
Balto customers use the playbook editor to write the script their agents follow on calls. Unfortunately, managers were struggling to keep the script current and had to devote extra time to make sure it stayed up to date and accurate for the demands of their ever-changing business.
Additionally, the playbook editor’s workflow was not intuitive or built to scale, which increased the workload for many managers and often led to a decrease in usage from Balto users.
The Solution
Empowering managers with functionalities
From research to implementation, we redesigned and enhanced the playbook editor, adding new features to improve usability and flow.
We also made visual improvements to minimize clutter, such as showing the edit, delete, and move actions on hover, which reduced the visual overload for managers so they can easily navigate to their editing fields.
Research
Digging into the pain points of users
I set up user interviews and looked at our NPS survey archive from active Balto Cloud users to better understand their pain points when using the playbook editor. We conducted:
Group interviews with Customer Success
Exploratory group interview sessions with internal partners from Customer Success to discuss the challenges and feedback they had heard from customers.
Manager interviews
Exploratory user interviews with managers who are especially active in maintaining their playbooks, to discuss their experience using Balto and any issues they were running into.
NPS survey archive
Comments about the playbook editor, prioritizing those with the lowest feedback scores.
9
user interviews
50+
survey responses
Insights
Key research findings
The findings from our research were organized on an affinity map to help visualize our users’ pain points and the areas that needed attention for the redesign. Working with my PM, with scope and business needs in mind, we identified the top 3 pain points to focus on during this project.
01 / Cumbersome to use
Managers found it laborious to maintain playbook content, since they had to click into each item to get more details.
02 / Overwhelming
Managers were often overwhelmed by the number of components shown on the page: error icons, unremovable error alerts, and notification counters.
03 / Non-prescriptive
The win marker being the last item of the script was not prescriptive. Win markers mark off a script item and let managers track pass-through rates of specific script items. Calls are not linear, so managers wanted the flexibility to place a win indicator anywhere they choose, depending on their script.
Ideation
Designing within constraints
To make sure we could implement this redesign within the set timeframe, I worked closely with my Product Trio to walk through every enhancement and its technical feasibility.
After a few design iterations based on these constraints, I turned the design into high-fidelity mockups, reviewing with the engineers every step of the way to make sure we stayed within their technical parameters.
For sections without categories (Checklist, Notification, Sticky Note), we center aligned and widened the main content for cleaner visuals. The previous design was left aligned with a lot of unoccupied space on the right, which created awkward spacing.
For sections with categories (Dynamic Prompt and Post Call), we added a category sidebar where all categories are visible without scrolling and can be reorganized by dragging. Previously, categories could not be reorganized.
Direction 1: Since we wanted to move away from modals, I explored how users could add and edit content without leaving the page. In-line editing seemed intuitive and easy to use, but after testing, it wasn’t as scalable as we liked. Most playbooks have a large amount of content, so in-line editing could add a lot of clutter.
Direction 2: I explored a design where clicking an item opens a side panel on the right, so you can edit without going to a new page. You can collapse the category sidebar and the side panel when they’re not in use to make space for the main content. However, a side panel wouldn’t give us a unique URL, which we want for deep linking in the near future.
The decision: both directions demoed well, and both would have shipped faster than a new page. I chose the page because it was the only option that scaled with the content and gave every section its own URL. That meant the redesign could support deep linking later without being rebuilt, which is what a three-month window has to protect.
FINAL SOLUTION
Streamlining a better workflow to maintain playbook content
Skipping the modal
• Previously the whole playbook shared one URL, which prevented easy linking to specific sections. One of the most noticeable changes is that every section now gets its own page and URL.
• Editing an item takes users to a new page rather than a modal window.
• The new page includes a preview section, so managers can see how their script will look inside the agent app.
Shiftable win markers
• In the previous design, the win marker had to be the last item in the checklist, set by dragging an item into a slot.
• In the redesign, any item can be the win marker: click the kebab for more options and select “Mark as win.”
• This gives managers more control of their own script, with the option to choose where the win marker goes.
Improved warnings and errors
• Previous warnings couldn’t be dismissed, creating visual clutter that overwhelmed users when they landed on the page.
• Many warnings were merely suggestions on word length, potential overlapping items, or “misspelled” words that were usually industry terminology.
• Letting users dismiss these alerts alleviates the clutter.
The Outcome
After the release of the redesign, we tracked usage in Pendo. In a little over a month, we saw a 23% increase in playbook editor usage. We also received feedback from active Balto Cloud users and CSMs that their workflows are more efficient.
This redesign was a facelift for the playbook editor, as well as a moment for the engineers to clean up the backend so we have a solid foundation for future features. We will continue to gather customer feedback and make improvements to resolve pain points.
