CREATION OF AN ONBOARDING PORTAL FOR SABRE’S DEVELOPERS AND ENGINEERS.
Sabre Corporation is a travel technology company based in the US. With more than 10 000 employees, Sabre is onboarding roughly 100 new developers every month, which means the onboarding process needs to be as smooth, efficient and timely as possible in order to reduce the cost of each new hire.
My team and I were given the task of redesigning the installation process of Sabre Engineering Environment, otherwise known as S2E.
Walk-Through
Also known as S2E, the Sabre Engineering Environment enables software developers, cloud engineers, Site Reliability Engineers (SREs), enterprise architects, product owners, and other technical staff to do their best work without having to worry about installing or upgrading individual tools.
When going through their onboarding, users (developers) are having to spend upwards of 2 weeks waiting for accesses, being sent links and handmade google docs by their managers for next steps, with ultimately no standardised instructions to follow the installation of Sabre2.
Creating one space where newcomers can access all links, IT support, and step by step instructions for Sabre2’s launch will improve the speed of onboarding, boost confidence for new hires, and provide traceable onboarding stats.
A Setup Wizard to create one standardised onboarding experience. By developing an interface that leads new employees through the S2 installation step by step, we save time for managers, reduce the back and forth between newcomers and the internal Sabre support team and therefore the overall cost of onboarding.
Current S2E Setup.
User research
We needed to collect data and feedback from S2E end users who have recently completed the installation process.
METHOD
We knew we wanted to collect in-person feedback regarding the onboarding process but we didn’t have time to perform 10 in-depth interviews.
We decided to create a workshop using Miro (an online whiteboard tool)Because this was an internal study amongst Sabre employees, the recruitment of the workshop participants was very efficient. I communicated with 3 technical managers who asked the developers on their teams if they were interested in participating.
WORKSHOP STRUCTURE
Quick icebreaking exercise in order to get familiarized with Miro as a tool
Collect information on participants themselves
Give feedback on current Sabre2 Installation Process
Prioritize that feedback
Ideate together in order to brainstorm potential solutions
WHO DID WE TALK TO?
WORKSHOP
User Feedback.
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“I was sent the link to GitDocs onboarding by my manager but the documentation was out of date and I kept having to reach out to support, which takes forever”
Software Engineer
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“There was no indication how long I would be waiting to receive access/authorisation to the next step”
Software Engineer
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“I wasn’t showed when I had made an error during the process so there was nothing visislbe to fix. I waited 4 days before having to investigate why I hadn’t yet received my access token.
Architect
Research Findings
Now although the main complaint we received from developers regarding their onboarding was how long it took, we’ve been able to break this one element down and identify 4 main underlying pain-points. Once addressed properly these 4 elements would increase the speed of the overall onboarding and download of S2E.
UNCLEAR HOW TO FIND THIS INSTALLATION GUIDE
The majority of users we spoke to were sent a word document or equivalent during their first daily, or in an email by their manager.
NO INDICATION OF PROGRESS OR ERRORS
There are no error messages or notifications when information is not entered correctly
This means a developer could be waiting 3 days to be granted access to the next step, without ever knowing that no progress has been made because of a typo or missing information.
UNINTUITIVE AND OLD UX/UI
The bullet point instructions all in one webpage, meaning the user has to continually scroll up and down to review and collect information
There are many external links that remove the user from the current page, making the process choppy
LACK OF IT SUPPORT
When going through their onboarding, users (developers) are having to spend upwards of 2 weeks waiting for accesses, being sent links and handmade google docs by their managers for next steps, with ultimately no standardised instructions to follow the installation of Sabre2.
IDEATION
After defining the main points faced, I wrote down the main questions that would define the direction of our ideation and solution focused brainstorming sessions.
How can we provide easy access to IT support?
How can we create one centralized platform?
Are we able to re-order the steps in a more logical way, or at least create a more natural visual flow to the steps?
Is it possible to automate some of the accesses and downloads so that they are happening in the background?
CURRENT USER FLOW THROUGH S2 INSTALLATION
OUR REIMAGINED FLOW
Design
During our brainstorming and ideation sessions, the product designers and I defined a flow through the installation process that would then allow us to begin designing.
SETUP WIZARD
After multiple iterations and brainstorming sessions, the product team and I came up with the concept of the Setup Wizard.
According to the internet, A software wizard or setup assistant is a user interface that leads you through a sequence of small steps, like a dialog box to configure a program for the first time.
WEB FIRST
While wireframing, we focused on a web-first experience. When a developer starts as a new Sabre employee, they receive a laptop from the company. The whole onboarding process continues from there.
DESIGN SYSTEM
The Sabre product team have their own pre-existing and extensive design system that we used. Therefore, we did not create new elements, or partake in any branding.
PROTOTYPE
UNCLEAR HOW OR WHERE TO FIND INSTALLATION GUIDE
NO INDICATION OF PROGRESS OR ERRORS
UNINTUITIVE AND OLD UX/UI
NO IT SUPPORT
Design Solutions
After viewing our prototype, we wanted to showcase in detail the direct solutions to the initial problems we outlined at the beginning of our research.
Usability Testing
In order to validate our designs we conducted moderated and unmoderated research after having completed our mid fidelity designs.
MAZE DESIGN
Participants of our workshop were shown the prototype created by our UX Team in a software called Maze Design which allows users to navigate through a clickable prototype version of the Installation Wizard.
They were asked the complete missions such as “Find additional information about Nexus tokens” or “complete the Sabre2 Installation”.
RESULTS
We were then able to review the Maze results by looking at click heatmaps (see above), as well as usability scores and misclick rates for each individual screen.
Both the direct feedback we received in our workshop sessions, as well as the data collected from the Maze usability test indicated that the Setup Wizard offered a solution to its users’ issues with the current Sabre2 onboarding setup.