Nucleus

Nucleus is Ask Media Groups internal SaaS solution for SEM and Content marketing efforts. It serves as the backbone of the two foundational revenue streams for the company as well as an external facing agency management platform. I served as the lead UX designer along with my team that consisted of a UX designer (handled visual design duties) and a UX researcher.

The Problem

Nucleus had been built around an outdated product with little UX involvement to leverage the SEM functions of Ask Media Group. With the company expanding into paid content marketing the app was in need of an overhaul.  I brought in my UX team and we conducted an extensive audit, from top to bottom. Through user research and interviews we discovered a lot of inconsistencies as well as a lack of a solid foundation to allow the application to scale.

The Solution 

The first step was to establish a consistent style guide that was soon replaced by a robust atomic design system. We developed the new branding, color palette and overall nav structure of the application. This has allowed for the UX team to work with product and engineering to build out the paid content marketing piece, expand on existing functionality and push new user focused features that improved usability and efficiency. We reworked the overall user flow and navigation to allow for improvements in the near term along with two additional phases for future improvements based around business needs. (Please note that this is a proprietary platform, and I can show further examples of the UX work upon requests.)

The Process:

  • Provide feedback, strategy and ideas for the UX designers to develop and execute a user research plan

  • Audit existing application, identify goals for each feature, pain points and issues

  • Develop new design system including new branding, color pallet and site map

  • Work with product and engineering to help the UX team develop logic and functionality for existing and new features

  • Provide feedback and ideations to help the UX team deliver mocks and prototypes

  • Provide feedback and support to the engineering team during the build out process