EMPLOYER-FACING (B2B) DESIGN AND STRATEGY FOR A LEAVE MANAGEMENT SAAS STARTUP DEDICATED TO MAKING TAKING LEAVE EASIER
Cocoon’s existing onboarding process required manual input of company information during a lengthy setup with a ton of support interactions. On top of that, once onboarded, most elements in the employer-dashboard couldn't be edited directly within the software — and required additional interactions with customer support for changes. This inefficiency was at odds with Cocoon's ambitious 10x growth goals.
Our journey began with close collaboration. Immersed in the current onboarding team's world, we gained access to their manual documents and processes, diving deep into the problem's core. This assisted us in setting the stage for our mission to transform the onboarding experience.
To chart our course, I worked closely with the project manager and meticulously outlined each of the features to be developed and prioritized them. In this critical phase, we worked to determine which milestones to achieve first and which to tackle later, shaping the blueprint for our path.
To transform the existing employer dashboard into a user-friendly onboarding tool, I conducted a comprehensive audit. I facilitated a “design jam” workshop with engineers, project managers, and onboarding leads. Together, we reviewed our "building blocks" - the information collection pages for onboarding, both existing and new. This collaborative session not only clarified our direction but also highlighted design considerations and user restrictions.
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The first major design milestone was creating an onboarding task list. This task required close collaboration within the design team to ensure the list harmonized with existing employee-facing features while catering to the unique demands of the onboarding process.
To complete each phase, we adopted an agile approach, working in sprints. We prioritized the most complex-functionality pages first. With each sprint, we gained valuable experience and insights, allowing us to then tackle simpler pages in groups of multiples per sprint.
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Some issues, such as changes in primary navigation and additional onboarding elements, were left for future expeditions. However, we diligently documented these as "north star" goals to ensure they wouldn't be forgotten in the future scope of our journey.
My involvement in design at Cocoon was not limited to the product process. I was also a part of Cocoon's design board, which oversaw the company's re-branding. This entailed making design decisions for the brand's new look and strategizing how the product would later align with the rebranding on the marketing site, and planning future sprints with engineering to carry out the process in phases.
