Background
Tara is a Series A YC-funded productivity sprint management software solution. At Tara, we wanted engineers to adopt Tara in their daily workflow even when they are not actively on Tara’s website. We understood that one way to do that was by designing a Chrome Plug-in that allows users to access or update that task even when they are not Tara. We wanted to design the plug-in, so it acts as a companion tool to the main product and brings more users into the funnel through the Chrome extension.
My Role
I focused on understanding why a plugin is required by conducting market research. Next, I focused on competitive analysis, analyzed behaviors and needs of existing users, built personas, and defined product strategy. Finally, I created visuals, specs, and end-to-end experience for a Chrome plug-in.
Tools
Figma
Timeline
10-12 weeks
The Problem
While working, engineers find accessing and managing the status of their tasks extremely inconvenient, breaking their focus on execution. Overall, switching windows between tools and Tara (project management tool) to find information related to assigned tasks, update its status to inform stakeholders, track console logs, and link information (copying and pasting) to create tasks can feel cumbersome and time-consuming. Engineers feel this pain as these additional operational tasks add significant time to their day-to-day activities while they want to focus primarily on the actual work.
Solution
We believed that building a companion Chrome plug-in for Tara and providing quick access to specific workflows will improve their productivity, causing less disruption for users while driving daily active users for Tara. We also identified two use cases:
Use Case 1: Existing user from Tara
The user learns about Tara’s Plug-in while using our web application and downloads it. User sign-in and the plug-in set up the workspaces within it and all the assigned tasks currently in their sprint.
Use Case 2: New User from Chrome Store
The users learn about this plug-in on the chrome store as a productivity application for engineers and download it. The user signs up for plug-in and starts Tara's onboarding on Tara's website. They finish onboarding and are now a Tara user. The user can now use the plug-in for all its features and has the workspace created. We also designed the plug-in as a stand-alone product where the user can use some features in the plug-in without even completing the onboarding on Tara.
Chrome Plug-in Experience
The plug-in opens up with a welcome page that gives an overview to the user about the critical functions of the plug-in.
As part of the research, the most significant pain point was capturing logs and manually putting them under tasks. This was addressed by making capturing logs the primary function for the plug-in. The plug-in allows engineers to capture logs by clicking screenshots and convert them into tasks that can be directly added to the sprint.
In addition to this, the plug-in also allows users to add tasks from anywhere in the browser without switching multiple windows. They can also access all status of tasks assigned to them in the sprint and filter them based on status. This helps them find their tasks anywhere while working, without going into Tara and updating them individually, saving a significant amount of time.
Capture Logs
The plug-in allows a user to capture logs on any page on the browser by capturing a screenshot, section area, or a 3-sec video. This was designed to address the problem where the QA engineers had to copy all these data is very into tasks for the developers to work on; with one click, a task can be created with log information making it very convenient. QA engineers can also make notes or circle elements in the screenshot that need to be addressed by the developers.
Meet Rob!
“its inconvenient to switch back to my sprint management tool to update tasks, while working, when I have multiple tabs open.”
“Accessing information instantly, description of the ticket is useful, preview of the screenshot”
Basic Info
Age: 28
Location: California
Job: QA Engineer
Education: Computer science
Role: Manages and report bugs, views and creates tickets.
Motivations
Be more efficient
Fulfill project deadlines
Clearly communicate progress to manager and stakeholders
Pain Point
Spends a lot of time alternating between tabs while working to create tasks/tickets.
Create tickets/tasks by taking screenshots of product and writes requirements for developers.
Meet Sherry!
“Streamlining the connection between Github and Tara. There is a lot of copy and pasting of the task id. Create task quickly, have to do manually in Tara. View my assigned task with one click.
“detects task id on Github, - prompt to link it to task. Value add the status of the status is correlated to the PR ”
Basic Info
Age: 32
Location: California
Job: Software Engineer
Education: Computer Science
Role: Works on frontend, pushes code to GitHub, submits PRs
Motivations
Be more efficient
Push code and address bugs on time
Pain Point
Spends a lot of time push code and creating tasks, address bugs
Submit PRs, Pull requests.
User Observations
8
Interviews
5
Usability Testing
4
Iterations