Mar 13, 2023
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One of the major initiatives we have undertaken to start this year is an update to our UI. As those of you who follow this blog know, we are starting the update with the platform's view screens. This initiative lays the groundwork for our long-term strategic vision of creating a persona-driven platform to streamline and tailor the Accelo experience for all our users. Since we are about halfway through the year, we'd like to give an update on how our primary initiative is going and how you and your users can engage with us to contribute via feedback and user interviews or learn more.
UX and UI Redesign: Sales View Screen
We kicked off the initiative by prioritizing the view screens across the platform and selected the Sales view screen as the most impactful screen to prioritize first. The reasoning behind this decision is that it is a commonly used screen with a variety of personas engaging with the screen, but not so heavily used that iteration and possible course changes would cause users confusion or frustration as we learned through our new design and engineering efforts. We are happy to announce that the designs for the Sales view screen are in the final validation phase and the feedback so far has been very positive. Much appreciation to everyone who has given us the time and opportunity to test out the designs and gather feedback and use cases to ensure the new UI meets your needs and improves your experience.
The Product and Design teams have been iterating on the concepts using the feedback you've all shared and the results are exciting. Continuing on with the prioritization of the UI initiative in Q2, we are putting this work at the top of the list for Engineering. All teams are engaged in this effort to some degree this quarter. Whether it's the backend team cranking out GraphQL endpoints, the frontend teams coding up the designs or the core team building new components for our design system library, there has been a lot of progress. For those interested in what the tech stack looks like for this redesign, check it out below.
Engineering is making all the right decisions to upgrade the underlying architecture to position the platform to be more resilient, scalable and performant. We are taking this opportunity to adopt a transitional architecture approach and modernize the platform architecture as development continues and as makes sense.
As mentioned above, the Sales view screen is in final design validation. The Product Research team will continue to gather feedback from all of you as we validate those designs and changes. Our primary focus at this point is validating these designs with the correct personas — users who will be in the Sales view screen every day — to confirm that we are building the right solution for them.
With the Sales view screen going so well, what's next? Great question! As the process shifts from research and design into a heavy development phase for the Sales view screen, the Product and Design teams are turning their attention to the Tickets and Projects view screens.
Tickets will be first and research has begun for that view screen. If you or your employees are heavy tickets users, please consider sharing your experience and use cases with us. We are actively looking for clients who are willing to share. Please sign up here if you are interested.
Recent Releases
In addition to all the work that is happening with the UI redesign, we have a few releases that people have been looking forward to.
- Xero marketplace release
- Task status board beta launch
Xero Marketplace Release
One of the benefits of Accelo's integration with Xero is the opportunity for Accelo to be listed in their marketplace, the Xero App Store. Xero is now in the process of relaunching their marketplace, and as part of that relaunch, we're updating the signup process for users coming from the Xero marketplace.
We are implementing a new trial signup flow that aligns more closely with the Xero marketplace standards. The new flow will help to create a streamlined experience for new users between finding Accelo in the Xero marketplace and signing up for an Accelo trial and highlights the partnership between the two applications.
Task Status Board Beta
The beta for the new Task status board has been open for a few months now and the feedback has been great. We heard from one of our clients how the addition of boards has helped him get his team out of Jira.
Daniel W. says, "You have no idea how happy I am! It was a fight to get my colleagues away from JIRA, because they’ve missed their boards so much."
The beta will continue to be available as we develop the next stage of the status board roadmap. Watch for more information here about the deadline board. If you'd like to turn on the beta, check out this Accelo Community post for instructions.
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