Nexforce

Nexforce is an AI-driven CRM platform crafted to simplify the complex landscape of customer relationship management for small businesses. In an industry dominated by behemoths like Salesforce and Freshsales, navigating the plethora of features can often feel overwhelming, especially for less tech-savvy users. Nexforce disrupts this status quo by providing an intuitive, user-friendly interface without sacrificing the power and insights offered by larger platforms. It was built with simplicity and user experience in mind.

Problem

In the saturated CRM market, small businesses grapple with platforms that are too complex or lack advanced features like AI. Nexforce aims to fill this void by offering an AI-driven, user-friendly CRM solution tailored to the needs of smaller, less tech-savvy businesses.

Solution

Nexforce is a CRM platform designed to simplify customer management for small businesses. It features fully customizable dashboards to prioritize essential information and aims to incorporate AI for a streamlined and user-friendly experience.

Tools Used

Figma
FigJam

Photoshop
Slack

My Role

Project Duration

UX/UI Designer

1 Year

Zoom
Google Suite

Competitive Analysis

Our five-member team undertook an extensive competitive analysis of the CRM market, delving into major players' offerings and market positioning. This analysis aimed to gather insights that would inform the development of Nexforce, our CRM solution.

Freshsales Analysis

I focused on Freshsales, examining its user interface and functionality as part of the analysis. Here are the key takeaways:

Strengths

User-Friendly Interface: Freshsales is known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface.
Integrated Solutions: Being a part of the Freshworks suite, it offers seamless integration with other Freshworks products.
Email Integration: The platform effectively integrates email, streamlining communication within the CRM system.
AI-powered Features: Features like AI-powered lead scoring assist sales teams in prioritizing leads effectively.
Affordable Pricing: Freshsales offers pricing plans tailored to consumer needs, making it affordable.

Weaknesses:

Limited Customization: Users have noted a lack of deep customization options compared to other CRM giants.
Advanced Reporting: The range of reporting features might not be as comprehensive as those in larger CRM systems.
Integration with Non-Freshworks Products: There are potential limitations when integrating with third-party tools outside the Freshworks ecosystem.
Learning Curve: Some of the more advanced features can be challenging for new users to master.
Mobile Experience: The mobile app experience is considered less polished than the desktop version.

Analysis of Other CRM Tools

My teammates conducted a similar analysis on other primary CRM tools like Hubspot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, and Zendesk Sell. Their research focused on gathering mission statements, analyzing strengths and weaknesses, and evaluating features like responsiveness and educational resources. This comprehensive analysis, supplemented with notes on customer feedback and pricing models, was pivotal in shaping Nexforce's UX design and unique value propositions.

Impications for Nexforce

The insights from Freshsales highlighted the importance of user-friendly interfaces and the value of integrated solutions, which we aimed to incorporate into Nexforce.
Recognizing the demand for more extensive customization and advanced reporting, we focused on enhancing these aspects in Nexforce.
We also noted the necessity of seamless integration with a variety of third-party tools beyond just a specific ecosystem.
Addressing the learning curve and mobile experience issues identified in Freshsales, we prioritized intuitive design and a robust mobile interface for Nexforce.

Our competitive analysis provided a comprehensive understanding of the CRM market. It guided the strategic direction for Nexforce, ensuring it meets and exceeds market expectations in usability, functionality, and user experience.

Ideation

User Flows

User flows played a pivotal role in defining the user experience of Nexforce, guiding the development of an interface that is both intuitive and efficient. Three critical tasks stood out from the initial blueprints of our minimum viable product (MVP), each integral to the platform's effectiveness. These tasks encompassed managing customer interactions, customizing the dashboard to display relevant data, and setting up automated workflows for routine tasks. We established a straightforward and logical navigation path by meticulously mapping out these user flows. This careful planning significantly improved the interaction quality between the user and Nexforce, ensuring that managing customer relationships was manageable and a streamlined and insightful process.

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Our team of five embarked on creating low-fidelity wireframes for Nexforce, focusing on design and visual storytelling and laying the groundwork for CRM's future.

Each team member, myself included, drafted each low-fi screen. This approach allowed us to cast a wide net of ideas, ensuring no potential design path was left unexplored. We selected the most promising wireframes from these diverse perspectives for further development.

In our wireframes, the inclusion of specific elements was deliberate, guided by extensive research in the CRM market, and tailored to the needs of small businesses and less tech-savvy users:

Simple Menus: We integrated straightforward navigation menus for ease of use.
Customizable Dashboards: The wireframes featured ideas for customizable widgets, allowing users to personalize their dashboards based on their business type and critical metrics.

These elements were strategically chosen to simplify the user journey, ensuring an intuitive and efficient user experience.

Setting the Foundation for Medium-Fidelity Wireframes

The culmination of this phase was a set of wireframes that laid the foundation for our medium-fidelity designs. These wireframes embodied our vision for Nexforce, balancing functionality and simplicity and setting a design ethos for the subsequent stages.

As we transitioned to the medium-fidelity phase, we emphasized additional user-centric features:

Streamlined Sign-Up Process: Focusing on reducing initial setup complexity, we aimed to create a straightforward sign-up process.
Introductory Tours: To assist less tech-savvy users, we planned for guided tours within the app, highlighting key functionalities and easing the learning curve.

These considerations were crucial in developing a user-friendly interface that resonated with our users' needs, leading us toward an intuitive and functional CRM solution.

Medium-Fidelity Wireframes

We prioritized refining our designs to enhance user engagement and ease of use. This phase was about translating the foundational ideas from our low-fidelity wireframes into more detailed models closer to what we envisioned for the final design. We focused on simplifying the sign-up process to ensure a seamless user onboarding experience, recognizing its importance in user retention. Additionally, we integrated introductory tours to assist less tech-savvy users, making the CRM tool accessible and user-friendly. These decisions were driven by a deep understanding of our users' needs for a simple, beginner-friendly platform. As well as create an intuitive and functional CRM solution that resonates with new and experienced users.

Design

Color Selection

As part of the design process for Nexforce, our team delved into the task of color palette selection, with each member generating a range of options. My personal focus was on the psychology of color, particularly how it influences user emotion and perception. Driven by this approach, I was convinced that blue was the ideal choice, encapsulating professionalism and trustworthiness – essential qualities for a CRM tool.

I created several palettes centered around blue, including variants for a dark mode. This choice was informed by the anticipation that users might be working late hours; hence, a palette that was easy on the eyes in low-light conditions was crucial. I aimed to cater to the diverse needs and contexts of potential Nexforce users, ensuring comfort and accessibility at any time of the day.

After each team member presented their palettes, we transitioned to a democratic selection process. We carefully reviewed all the options, and each of us selected our top three palettes. This voting stage was not just about aesthetics; it was about finding the right visual representation for Nexforce's brand values and user experience goals.

The chosen palettes then moved forward into the High-fidelity UI phase.

Style Guide

Creating the style guide for Nexforce was a strategic exercise in ensuring design consistency and coherence across the platform. This guide was not just a set of standards but a reflection of Nexforce's commitment to simplicity, professionalism, and user-centricity.

Typography Choices:

Our selection of Roboto and Lato fonts was a deliberate one. Both are sans serif fonts, which align with the contemporary feel we aimed for in Nexforce. Their wide variety of styling options offered us the creative flexibility we needed, ensuring that our designs remained fresh and adaptable without being restricted.

Button Design:

Regarding button design, we opted for rounded edges over squared ones. Round buttons have a softer, less aggressive appearance, which is consistent with the style used by most CRMs. This choice reflects the philosophy of 'if it's not broken, don't fix it,' ensuring familiarity and comfort for users in a professional setting.

Iconography:

For icons, we prioritized simplicity and professionalism. Our icons' clean and straightforward appearance was chosen to resonate with our target demographic of business professionals. In a CRM tool, there's little room for whimsy; our focus was on clarity and functional elegance.

Color Palette and Brand Identity:

The color palette, centered around shades of blue, was selected for its ability to evoke trust and sophistication. Blue, as a color, is often associated with reliability, an essential attribute for a CRM tool. The text and icons were chosen to reinforce these qualities of trustworthiness and sophistication, aligning perfectly with Nexforce's goal to be a significant player in the CRM space.

Conclusion:

Beyond aesthetics, the style guide was essential for our design team, streamlining the design process and reducing ambiguity. It helped maintain a consistent visual language that was utterly harmonious with Nexforce's brand identity. This comprehensive guide played a pivotal role in developing a user interface that was not only visually appealing but also deeply connected with the brand's mission, facilitating a seamless and engaging user experience for small businesses and less tech-savvy users.

Hi-Fidelity UIs

In the high-fidelity UI phase of Nexforce, I focused on developing several vital screens: the landing page, every signup screen, the account creation success screens, and the login screens. Collaborating closely with a team member throughout this phase, we were committed to ensuring that each of these screens felt cohesive and adhered to best design practices.

Our approach was informed heavily by our previous competitive analysis. We carefully examined the strategies employed by leading players in the CRM market, aiming to strike a balance between following established design conventions and infusing our unique identity. This approach was particularly crucial for the landing page, which would be most users' first point of contact.

Design Decisions and Considerations:

Landing Page: The landing page demanded meticulous attention. Our goal was to create a welcoming yet professional entry point into Nexforce. We selected illustrations that were consistent in style, ensuring they conveyed professionalism without overwhelming the user. This was a delicate balance, as the landing page needed to be engaging but not distracting.
Signup and Login Screens: Our guiding principles were simple and user-friendly for the signup and login screens. We wanted to ensure that creating an account or logging in was straightforward, eliminating any potential barriers to entry. Each screen was crafted to guide the user effortlessly through each step, with clear instructions and an intuitive layout.
Account Creation Success Screens: Upon successful account creation, it was important that users felt a sense of accomplishment and clarity on their next steps. These screens were designed to be reassuring and informative, providing users with immediate guidance in using Nexforce effectively.

Throughout this process, our team regularly reviewed and evaluated each design, ensuring that every screen looked aesthetically pleasing and resonated with Nexforce's core values. The feedback from these sessions was invaluable, helping us refine our designs into a harmonious and user-centric final product.

The culmination of this phase was a series of high-fidelity UIs that captured Nexforce's essence: a CRM tool that combines professional sophistication with intuitive usability. This collaborative journey was vital in developing a product interface that aligned seamlessly with the user's needs and expectations.

Developer Handoff

Development Handoff

The development handoff for Nexforce was a pivotal stage, marking the transition from design to implementation. My first experience in such a role was intricate yet smooth, thanks to our team's thorough preparation and collaboration. We employed the Measure plugin for Figma, an invaluable asset in this phase, enabling precise measurement and documentation of design elements like spacing, font sizes, and content positioning. We used a standardized documentation format to ensure clarity and consistency for the development team, utilizing black text boxes for clear annotations.

This structured approach significantly bridged the design and coding gap, ensuring developers clearly understood our design specifications. We minimized misunderstandings and unnecessary revisions by providing detailed information, maintaining clear communication, and streamlining the development process. This experience not only honed my skills in translating design into a functional product but also highlighted the criticality of precision in design communication, leading to a seamless realization of the Nexforce platform.

This marked the end of the Nexforce Project.

Reflection

Learnings

Working on the Nexforce project was a remarkable journey and a significant milestone in my professional growth. This project marked my first experience collaborating in a team of five, and it surpassed my expectations regarding teamwork and collective problem-solving. When I was in school, everything was done on our own, so working in groups was not something that was explored. So, I feel I've been enlightened on group work processes.

Working on this project, what struck me most was how we had each other's backs. Challenges were inevitable, but so was the readiness of our team to step in with assistance or a new angle to consider. This unity didn't just make our days brighter; it boosted our efficiency and the caliber of what we produced. The comfort of relying on one another for support and advice was precious, especially when we faced the unknown or dove into more intricate issues.

Another part of our journey that I'll always cherish was our mutual idea-sharing. The energy in the room when we all brainstormed together was something else. We covered more ground with our collective minds than we could alone. This way, we gathered various thoughts and chose the best ones to interlace into our final product. This not only sped up the rate at which we could accomplish tasks but also leveled up our project in ways impossible by a single person.

Looking back, I'm so proud of how we worked as a team. You could see our connection in every step, from the early stages of research to the final touches, combining aspects of everyone's style. This whole experience has taught me the importance of collaboration in design. It set the bar for how I want to work together with others in the future. The insights and skills I've gained from this work experience are something I'll carry into all my next team ventures.