Myrise,
a SaaS platform.
Myrise is a content analytics tool for marketeers.
I was the product manager for 2 years, in the myrise's first years. My contributions: user interviews, user testing, interface design, information architecture, interface design, UI-kit & branding identity.
Expectations
Reality
I'll introduce you to my home-made workflow.
Features
To pin down our audience's problems, I organised interviews and tests. With that information the team held brainstorms, to see where we could help. That's how features were born.
Feature specs
To describe how features work, I created feature specs. They look simple (ugly), but they're easy to edit and to communicate with. The spec goes back and forth between team members to evaluate, refine and eventually to help build the feature.
Depending on the feature, specs contain flowcharts and mockups or HTML prototypes.
Persona's
The specs are built with persona's, to remind you of who you're building it for. Watermelondrea is fake, but the persona's are based on real people.
Reviewing & testing
A shipping mentality is important. That's why startups need to guard the quality, spot problems early on and keep their feet on the ground. How we did it:
- Review the app constantly;
- organise regular user testing sessions;
- track the right metrics.
Big Bertha
Github is the perfect place to report problems to the team and see what needs to be done, but not for keeping a bird's eye perspective. Introducing Big Bertha: a fat lady that won't forget. She keeps a list of all the features and their issues (small, big and future). Those issues make it back into the brainstorms and feature specs.
Besides thinking up features and creating experiences,
branding is one of the most fun things to do for a company.
