Halo Rise

I use my Halo Rise everyday, trying to set an alarm shouldn’t be a puzzle.

Date: Aug 2022 - June 2024 // Company: Amazon - Halo // Team: Halo UX Team // Title: UX Designer 11

Skills:

User Research, Prototyping, Interface Design, Usability Testing, Information Architecture, Analysis, Collaboration, Communication, Design Leadership.

Role:

I lead the post-launch CX roadmap for Halo Rise

Contributors:

2 TPM
4 product managers
1 project manager
1 Halo director
1 Alexa director
1 brand designer
2 sleep doctors
2 QA teams
4 SDMs + engineering teams in (3 timezones: 1 in US, 1 in brazil, 1 in India)
2 data science teams

Overview

Problem

Setting alarms is a fundamental feature of the Halo Rise app, yet users frequently faced difficulties locating and managing these settings. This not only led to a high volume of customer support inquiries but also significantly impacted user satisfaction and trust in the app's reliability.

Solution

After a discovery effort to understand the key problems to the lower launch ratings, I addressed this by designing a clear, accessible pathway to the alarm management page directly from the app’s homepage. This strategic placement and simplification helped users easily set and edit alarms, enhancing the app's usability and reducing support calls.

Challenges

Challenge One

Streamlining Communication in a New Team Structure

I joined the Halo Rise project a month before the official launch date, right after it had undergone a reorganization. This meant coordinated with multiple engineering teams across various time zones and with several product managers who worked independently from the two project managers (say that 5 times fast).

Through a series of synchronous (meetings) and asynchronous (Figma collaboration) mechanisms that I implemented, we stayed in-synch while also respecting each other’s time.

Challenge Two

Juggling Multiple Projects Across Organizational Divides

Leading both the Halo Rise and membership projects put me at the crossroads of two distinct organizational structures with no cross-communication.

Balancing the unique demands of each required sharp prioritization and meticulous time management, ensuring both moved forward effectively without compromising quality.

Challenge Three

Navigating Quick Start in a High-Stakes Environment

Stepping into Halo Rise shortly before launch, I quickly mastered the project's intricacies, ensuring seamless leadership transition and maintaining momentum during the critical launch and post launch phase.

Method

Source of Truth

After team feedback highlighted confusion between 'current' and 'upcoming' designs, I revamped our Figma files and documentation. This led to significant improvements in workflow efficiency, praised by team members across roles—from QA, Engineering and and various PMs. Advocating for a structured yet flexible design approach, I aim to simplify tasks to free up more time for collaborative problem-solving.

Workshops

I conducted several design thinking workshops to both understand the space and build momentum for solving fundamental customer problems that will greatly impact the user experience.

Current Path

After sorting the primary goals for a Halo Rise user; to learn about their sleep, improve their sleep hygiene and to have confidence they will wake up at the right time.

I found that one of the top complaints is setting up an alarm. Not only was the one of the top call for customer support, the team also witnessed this in a focus group. Unfortunately, the primary usability test before launch started the person in settings, which meant this problem wasn’t uncovered.

Heuristic Review

  • Understandability; the flow is difficult to comprehend.

    • Alarms is not grouped appropriately and easy to find.

  • It’s a memory challenge to remember where to go.

  • Efficiency issues; there are unnecessary steps to get to alarms.

Design and Build

Stress Test

Recommendation version concept options

UI Iterations

Leading the design requirements and collaborating with a dedicated UI designer.

Examples of written design requirements:

  • The ingress to alarms in more important than the next alarm status, need to represent that in hierarchy/visually

  • Must match text of wireframe

  • Need to keep button/link

  • Second most important task on homepage, need to represent that visually, although it shouldn’t clash or visually compete with temporary yet important announcements (tooltips, interventions, device status toasts/banners)

Bringing it all Together

Impact

In my role leading the Halo Rise post-launch CX, I significantly enhanced decision-making capabilities within the organization by implementing a data-driven balanced with user-focused approach to UX design.

My efforts led to strategic improvements that directly increased the app's review score to 4.2, demonstrating a measurable enhancement in user satisfaction.

Additionally, I streamlined collaboration processes among cross-functional teams, establishing more efficient workflows and fostering a culture of proactive communication and shared goals.