Natural Recorder
Process Mining
Redesigning the Natural Recorder agent within the IBM Task Mining experience.
My role
UX Designer
IBM Task Mining is a feature within IBM Process Mining which mines the event log data that IBM Process Mining works on. This happens on the downloadable agent - the Natural Recorder
One doesn't need to be an empath to understand that the idea of your boss asking you to record your screen during your workday is likely to make our persona feel nothing short of watched, distrusted, uneasy and uncomfortable.
We needed to create a Task Miner experience which was extremly transparent & answered all questions these feelings would create, even before our persona had the chance to think of them. We needed to establish a foundation of trust early on in the Natural recorder experience, and make our user feel supported and safe.
Mission statement
Personas
Cameron
Julia
Cameron is the worker whose day-to-day will tasks will be recorded using the Natural recorder task mining agent. He will need to download this onto his computer where he can see the tasks Julia has asks him to record himself performing.
Julia is a Task Mining admin, she is in charge of managing the collection of task mining data. This will be sent back the the business analyst.
As-Is scenario
Click through the previous state of the Task Miner agent upon aquisition.
Problem: No justification nor explanation of what the user is expected to do and why
Problem: No hierarchy - the user isn't clearly guided towards what they're expected to do in next steps. These CTAs aren't explained, nor implied to be necessary to complete the recording task - which they are.
Problem: An abrupt end to the flow. No explanation, no proper confirmation, no updates or next steps
Problem: No justification nor explanation of what the user is expected to do and why
Unreadable expected path
The product had an incredibly tedious golden path. The navigation was extremely unclear and the user was not lead towards any obvious next steps. There was no hierarchy in the interface and let do a very unintuitive, and clogged experience.
No reassurance
As established; recording oneself during the workday, is a sensitive and invasive ask. The empathy for that is nowhere to be seen in the previous designs of the Task miner agent. There's no justification or information provided to Cameron, nor is there a way for him to contact were he to have any questions. In our research we found our users were extremly unlikely to proceed with the recording due to this.
Inconsistent visual design
The interface of the previous Task miner agent is inconsistent - both with the IBM portfolio, and within itself. The lack of hierarchy and intuitive experience is largely due to it's lack of design system.
To-be scenario
Scroll through the to-be scenario using the arrow on the right hand side of the carousel.
Julia enters the natural recorder agent from IBM Task Mining. She can see the status of all her ongoing task miner projects
Julia enters the natural recorder agent where she can see the status of all her ongoing task miner projects
Cameron enters his Natural Recorder and sees that he has been assigned a new Task.
He clicks on the task and reads the description, and reviews the pages & applications on the “allow list”.
Cameron successfully begins recording his task. He can see it running in the background, and ends the recording once finished. He optionally adds a note with comments for Julia.
Recording is successfully sent to Julia into her Task Mining database. Here she loops in her business analyst to begin working on the new event logs acquired.
Informational Architecture
End to end flow of all Natural Recorder screens
Final
Low fidelity Wireframes
Welcome page & walk me
The focus here was creating a soft landing into the task mining experience for the user. Our research returned which questions would be most likely to answer and soother initial feelings of doubt when going into an task like this. Following this theme - the voice and tone is approachable & relatable.
Project selection, dashboard and allow list
Julia Must have extensive functionality within the "Allowed list". Here she can add the only applications and websites which whose traffic will be picked up during the recording. And additionally, she should be able to obfuscate certain items within these pages as well.
Cameron only needs to know the list of projects he has been assigned to, hence the view only access. He should however be able to request certain pages by sending an internal message of request to the Julia handling his case. This is due to Cameron being much more familiar with the applications needed to complete his tas, whilst Julia is the only one with clearance to allow and hide pages.
Start recording
This aspect of the experience was about creating an unobtrusive agent whose only functionality was to record, stop and send the recording back to the requestor of the project for data collection. Our user shouldn't have to think how to use it, nor be distracted from doing their work - that way the data collected is as true and correct as possible.
Natural Recorder
Process Mining
Natural Recorder
Final screens
After final approval from Project Management and development, the final low-fidelity designs were handed over to visual. The following screens are designed by Jonathan Fernandes using the Carbon Design system.
