The Risk Module is an add-on module NextRequest customers can use to identify sensitive information in documents uploaded before manual review.
PROJECT GOALS
This product was born out of two high level objectives that tied back into our company’s mission, and was reinforced by the early market research completed by our senior product manager and CEO.
1. To help our customers reduce the time it takes to find sensitive information in uploaded documents that needed review, thereby delivering information to the public faster.
2. To help build trust in uploading documents with sensitive data and hopefully making it more likely agencies will publish documents not just for the requester, but for the public at large.
DESIGN PROCESS
Distilling market research through an exploratory product workshop
I ran an exploratory product workshop that I have found to be successful in the past for taking high level ideas and making sure we aren’t just jumping into solutions.
Sketching ideas and outlining qualitative research plans
Early sketches helped to visualize ideas for our development and growth teams, helping to pave the way towards two distinct feature sets that we would eventually build and launch. At the same time, I was putting together a research plan and with the help of my PM, reaching out to current customers who showed an interest in this kind of feature.
Dashboard Mockup creation and iterative improvements with engineers
The next phase was to take these early sketches and rough wireframes and start ideating around the UI and user flow. I started with the dashboard feature since that aligned with engineering priorities for testing how this data was scanned and piped into the application. Our design and engineering was happening in sync, so while I was iterating on dashboard ideas the engineering team was busy implementing.
In-workflow design iterations with engineering
We then pushed hard on the in-workflow features of the module, making sure a document risk tag and information on what is being flagged is easy to access anywhere the document appears. This required designing (or utilizing) the same components across the different pages, to make sure the patterns were consistent. The engineering team and I worked to iterate and design much of this experience together, taking inspiration and ideas from each other.
Preparing for version 1 launch
As we were preparing for launch, I took on more of the internal communication role around what this module is, how it works, and how to best pitch it to customers. This included doing some internal training and webinars to help get the CX and sales teams I also helped our director of marketing organize copy and create some lightweight marketing collateral, including one pagers, GIFS, a FAQ, and a landing page.
Post launch analysis and next steps
We hit our goal a bit early and released the first version of the Risk Module in early August 2021. By end of November 2021 we have successfully closed 9 deals including the Risk Module in their purchase package, which was 26% of new deals in that same time period.
Through beta interviews and post-launch research, we learned that there are a few core experience features that would drive deeper use and engagement. These features however are big technical challenges, and though we had initial hunches that these would high value features, we made the decision as a team to release the Risk Module as a version 1 without these features instead of delaying until we got it perfect.
