Comments and Collaborations

To improve collaboration within Archer, I led the five-month effort to integrate a communication system that would allow users to discuss risk-related tasks directly in the Archer platform. This was a new approach for Archer, where research-backed design decisions had not been a standard practice. I worked with one part-time researcher and one Product Owner to bring this initiative to life. 

1. Understanding the Users

Archer historically had limited research and testing practices for design decisions, lacking a structured process or dedicated user pool. As a result, I had to establish a research and testing framework from the ground up to gather meaningful insights and validate design choices.

We began with a survey to uncover how users currently collaborate with their teams and external partners. The goal was to understand their habits and jobs-to-be-done use cases: what tasks they were working on, what problems they were solving independently, and how we could build empathy for their workflows. Participants were pulled from a pool of design partners, who were then asked to share the survey with other team members. While participation wasn’t as high as desired, we were able to gather valuable insights.

Qualitative feedback showed that users overwhelmingly wanted a commenting feature within the platform. They explicitly requested in-app collaboration, audit trails, and notification systems that would allow conversations to be followed easily. Additionally, users felt comfortable with Microsoft UI patterns, reinforcing the decision to align with familiar design conventions.

2. Research & Ideation

With this information in hand, I created multiple proof-of-concepts (PoCs) and presented them to the product team and the design partners for feedback. We benchmarked against established design patterns and analyzed how the commenting system would integrate within the broader platform. This process helped refine the approach, ensuring that the final solution aligned with both user expectations and technical feasibility. My goal was to find an intuitive and efficient way for users to leave, find, and engage with comments without disrupting their workflows. 

3. Prototype and Testing:

I landed on a potential design and built it out into a fully-functional prototype utlizing figma variables that introduced in-platform commenting. With this, we conducted a three-day in-person user testing session during the yearly Archer Summit. Users were asked to complete five key tasks: finding a comment, writing a comment on a specific field versus adding one to the overall record, replying to a comment, resolving a comment, and receiving/responding to a notification. Observing their interactions provided valuable feedback on usability, potential friction points and possible use cases.

The testing phase revealed both minor and major usability issues. Some users overlooked the “Resolve” check button, making it difficult to mark comments as addressed. More critically, users didn’t always associate comments with the correct fields, leading to confusion about where conversations were taking place. The placement of the “Resolve” icon button outside the dropdown menu was perceived inconsistently and caused additional confusion. Users also expressed a desire for comments to integrate more seamlessly with the broader workflow and UI.

To address these gaps, I iterated on the design by introducing inline comments, allowing users to see and interact with comments directly on the record without opening the full panel. I also enhanced visual indicators to strengthen the connection between comments and their respective fields. Internal re-testing showed a marked improvement in user comprehension and ease of use.

Challenges & Constraints:

One of the biggest challenges in implementing this feature was that the product was undergoing a massive UI overhaul that was not yet released while this feature was being tested. This meant that user test results were influenced by the fact that participants were learning a new UI simultaneously, adding complexity to the evaluation process. Additionally, notifications and tasks had an existing mental model within the platform that users largely ignored, yet visually resembled traditional notifications. This required us to assess whether users could overcome that association and adopt the transition. User test results confirmed that they could. underutilized feature in the platform that needed to be entirely redefined, further complicating the implementation. 

4. Deliverables & Development Handoff

To ensure a smooth transition to development, I compiled findings into a UX research results document and a comprehensive UX report analyzing the product’s overall collaboration capabilities. Additionally, I created detailed spec sheets that outlined key elements of the commenting system, including:

The development team found the documentation clear and actionable, making it easy to integrate the new commenting system into Archer. The project not only delivered a long-requested collaboration feature but also set a precedent for incorporating UX research into Archer’s future development efforts. While development and implementation are still pending, the work has been widely recognized internally—receiving approval from the product team, development, and higher-ups across the company. Though there are no quantitative success metrics yet, the acknowledgment and adoption from multiple teams signal a strong validation of the work. 

Outcomes

This project reinforced the importance of user-centered design in enterprise tools. By establishing a structured research process, iterating on user feedback, and prioritizing workflow integration, I delivered a solution that enhances collaboration, decision-making, and efficiency within Archer.