Izzyplan's members and teams
​​Arranging organizations members, teams and projects.
Overview
ABOUT IZZYPLAN
Izzyplan is an organizational platform for teams developed by Startinn, offering tools such as a calendar, task lists, and project dashboards. Its goal is to simplify communication and save time by centralizing several related features in one place, whereas typically these features are spread across different products.
BACKGROUND
In 2019, Startinn initiated the strategic process of launching Izzyplan. The initial steps were already in progress when I was contracted as a freelancer to help create the prototype for their MVP.
THE PROJECT GOAL
As is common with similar platforms, Izzyplan would offer different tiers for organizing accounts, enabling users to better sort information according to their needs. I was then tasked with finding the most efficient way to classify these accounts and providing a simple and easy flow for users to group their teams.
Desk researching
The desk research process involved looking at similar platforms to see what they're doing. I checked out their websites, read reviews, and looked at any reports or studies available. I paid attention to things like how they charge for their services, how their websites are set up, and how they help teams work together. Here are some of the insights I gathered:
Prevalence of tiered subscription models among similar platforms, underscores the importance of offering flexibility to users with varying organizational needs.
Tiered subscription models
User permissions
Crucial need for strong data security and privacy measures in organizational platforms. Users seem to worry about data breaches or unauthorized access. Different permissions and profile roles apparently can help.
Desktop-first
Consider a desktop-first approach for the MVP, as users often utilize organizational tools predominantly during work hours in a computer, ensuring a smoother initial rollout with fewer technical challenges.
Allowing user-grouping
It looked like the best approach would be one where users can group their teams and projects in flexible ways to match their organization's needs. In this model, a user can create organizations and they can organize teams within organizations, ensuring members are grouped based on roles or departments.
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The tasks would be organized inside projects. Projects operate independently of teams, giving users the freedom to manage them separately. Users can assign projects to specific teams or work on them individually. This setup allows for effective organization and collaboration across different levels of the organization while maintaining autonomy for each project.
Planning the flow
I then created a userflow to map the navigation. Users can log in and switch between organizations, managing teams and projects easily. Depending on their permissions, they can create, edit, and delete teams and projects, adding or removing members as needed. This structure ensures straightforward collaboration and task delegation. The focus is on practicality.
Creating the wireframes
Some details still needed to be ironed out, but I could feel that the client was having a hard time understanding the userflow and communication was getting harder. So I jumped right into the wireframes so that we could use the visual aid to understand and discuss the flow.
CREATING AN ORGANIZATION
First, the user needs to create an organization to manage everything inside. So the system asks for an organization name, allows the user to invite members by email, and then shows the organization's configuration form, where more details can be added.
MANAGING MEMBERS
Accessing the members tab in the sidebar the user can see all members inside the organization. New members can be added directly in the table.
MANAGING TEAMS
Inside the teams tab is a table listing every team in the company. Clicking in one of them displays the team details, with its projects and members.
PROJECTS
The user can see the organization's projects by clicking in projects in the sidebar. Clicking in one of the projects shows the project details, with the members list and allows the user to edit and add more members.
Creating the prototype
To create the hi-fi prototype for, we first reviewed the existing wireframes to ensure they captured all necessary features and user flows accurately. After refining the design based on feedback, we created a comprehensive, interactive hi-fi prototype, ready for user testing and further iteration.
