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Guiding users for clearer, simpler product experiences

Prompting Front admins to tidy up their rules through notifications and tips

PORTFOLIO > CASE STUDY #3

Context and discovery

Problem

As companies scaled their use of Front's software, admins faced challenges managing rule lists:

  • Outdated or broken rules caused improper message routing

  • Lengthy rule lists degraded product performance

  • Complex rule management increased customer support escalations

  • High risk of customer churn due to system inefficiency

Goals

Achieve our OKR: Motivate a select group of large customers to delete over 40% of their "dead" rules (inactive rules unused in the previous six months.)

Key outcomes

  • 150% increase in customers deleting over 40% of inactive rules

  • Reduced product complexity

  • Improved system performance and user experience

Process

Research

I worked with the lead product designer to understand why admins were hesitant to delete rules. Our research combined:

  • User interviews

  • Internal analytics on inactive rules

  • Engineering scoping documents

Through our research, we found that admins lacked enough information to make confident decisions. I reviewed user interviews to better understand their pain points.

Several challenges emerged: admins couldn’t quickly identify which rules were working and which were outdated. In large companies, multiple admins were involved, and without knowing who created a rule or when it was last edited, they were hesitant to take action.

Content explorations and design

We developed and implemented three complementary solutions to address rule management:

1. Inline warning message

We considered adding an inline notification to highlight broken or outdated rules. We decided to focus on rules not applied in the last six months, as this approach was a smaller lift for the engineering team compared to providing instructions on how to fix broken rules. We also brainstormed visual cues to pair with the messaging, which could be carried over to the rule view.

A screenshot of the rule list with inline messaging

2. Recommendations and tips

We added a tip component to create a shortcut for sorting rules by “last applied.” This worked in tandem with the inline messaging. When sorted, admins could quickly view all outdated rules in one block.

I considered showing the number of outdated rules in the header, but analytics showed that for some companies, this might feel overwhelming. Instead, I focused on clearly communicating the “what” and “why” of the message—explaining the current state and highlighting the opportunity for improvement.

Three drafts of different wordings
Notification appearing above the rule list

3. In-app guidance

We designed a message to appear when admins clicked the “Show me” CTA in the tip, making sure it clarified how they could trigger the view again in the future. During this process, I also tackled broader style questions. After collaborating with the other content designer, I updated our style guide to include guidelines for styling UI references with bold text and consistent capitalization.

Pendo guidance

Finally, the product designer and I explored what admins would see when they clicked on an outdated rule. We revisited our research to determine which information would be most helpful.

We designed a collapsible module displaying the rule’s creation and edit history, using the same visual styling as the inline warning in the rule list view.

Rule insights collapsible box

Outcome and learnings

By examining the rule management challenge from three distinct perspectives, we:

  • Provided comprehensive solutions

  • Addressed user hesitations

  • Created a more intuitive admin experience

The project's strength lay in our multi-faceted approach, testing various prompting strategies to guide users effectively.

The percentage of customers who deleted more than 40% of their “dead” rules increased by 150%. This series of explorations taught me valuable lessons about the iterative nature of the Agile design process, helping me adapt to changing priorities and unexpected roadblocks.

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