WAF App
Redesign
A case study in how not to come across as a product with multiple PMs and how we helped a leading WAF App tackle the same.
“𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘴”, said the Head of Product of this Cybersecurity SaaS company. Users keep asking for more features, each feature takes its own shape (often with its own PM), eventually leading to a patchy user experience.
We had the opportunity to redesign a successful web-application-firewall (WAF) app. Although successful, the application had become too difficult for new users to get used to.
When we talked with the stakeholders, we realized that the app had been built incrementally. This is how it typically goes:
How a 10-PM product is born
This seems totally normal. The customers used it and paid for it. It solved a real problem. However, when this was done many times, the product ended up with many ‘scanners’ and ‘reports’ and as a result, the overall experience was not thought through.
How the users think about their tasks
We talked to users from each persona, studied their tasks, and learnt what would be a good IA. Let’s take an example:
As we can see from this, the user is seeking an answer to a simple question, and would benefit the most if vulnerabilities or properties are the primary indices rather than ‘reports’.
3. A better user experience
While we cannot explain the process of IA design in this, it’s nothing different than the textbook version. We basically look at how different types of users think of their tasks and design something that is efficient and sensible for all of them.
The new IA was working at 3 levels.
Convincing the PMs
But such a major overhaul would mean facing PMs’ concerns about reducing the space given for individual features on home. We looked at every task the users were doing, and quantified it.
Every single task was measurably better (or at least the same).
This helped us have a more objective conversation with the PMs, and after a few tweaks, we moved ahead with the new IA.
Testing with users
We tested this with users and apart from being able to do tasks faster and with less friction at each step, they mentioned that they felt the newer experience being ‘better connected’ - in other words, more cohesive and non fragmented.
Summary
• The WAF App was built incrementally
• This led to a patchy experience
• An IA exercise was meticulously executed to solve this problem
• The problem and solution were quantified to convince the stakeholders
• The new design was tested and validated to check whether it solved the problem
