Addressing feature parity between Jira and Jira Service Managament (JSM)
This case study details the design I did for Secure Notes for JSM. As it is a completely new product, this allowed me to lead the vision of the product and a chance to show how a great user experience can have a huge impact on users. By designing Secure Notes, we addressed a critical gap in JSM, helping users securely share sensitive information and bringing in significant revenue for the company.
Involvement
Leading the product vision and aligning cross-functional teams.
Simplifying complex workflows for users through research and iterative design.
Redefining the design process to fit into engineering sprints.
Timeline
Jan 2024 - June 2024
Achievements
Contributed 4-digit revenue to the company
40 installs on the Atlassian Marketplace
Redefined design process within engineering sprints (driving weekly sprints based on deliverable and value-adding outcomes, integrating design tickets into the backlog)
Addressing the Gap
Jira Service Management (JSM) users cannot securely share sensitive information on JSM due to feature parity between Jira and JSM. Users can restrict comment visibility to any group or individual on Jira, but this feature is not available on JSM. Additionally, Atlassian has said in various community forum posts that they are not planning to add this feature anytime soon.
One of our JSM users shared how they had to constantly switch tools to share sensitive info, leading to delays and risks. That pain point inspired Secure Notes—a seamless, encrypted solution right within JSM.
Factors to Consider
Designing a successful product requires balancing feasibility, viability, and desirability. I had to consider all three factors when building Secure Notes for JSM.
Several factors changed and impacted how we would look at the app:
Feedback from users
Limitations on JSM’s platform
The team’s unfamiliarity with JSM, as this was our first JSM project
Collecting Research Data
To understand more about the problem, my team conducted several internal interviews with users from various departments to understand their current process of sharing sensitive information on JSM and what they would like to see improved. The main pain points listed include:
Data and context reside in multiple third-party platforms other than JSM, leading to much context switching.
Difficulty in tracking, managing, and regulating access to files as this responsibility falls under the collaborators.
If the conversation between the customer and agent becomes too sensitive, they will have to move out of JSM to continue the discussion, which will lead to the loss of context.
Exploring the Market
Competitor benchmarking is a vital step in user research, providing insights into commonalities and differences between the product and others. This analysis helped identify trends and user interactions with competing products. Notable features observed in competitors included:
End-to-end encryption - This ensures the data being shared by users is secure. encrypted and can only be seen by the relevant people.
Real-time notifications - This ensures that the relevant people are being notified when a secure note is shared with them, keeping them in the loop and preventing loss of context.
Compliance support - This ensures our solution is compliant with industry-standard regulations, which instills trust in users and assures them that our solution is safe to use.
Finding the Key Features
A thorough feature mining session was conducted to discuss and pinpoint key features for the product's first iteration. The feature mining session helped determine the product's minimum marketable features (MMF). Some of the minimum marketable features include:
Adding and viewing secure notes - This is the most essential part of our solution as it solves the main pain point.
End-to-end encryption - As mentioned above, this ensures that the data being shared by users is secure and encrypted.
Focusing on only text being allowed for the notes - Although supporting both text and attachments would have been ideal, this project was running on a tight schedule so it was decided that the solution was only going to support text for the notes.
Seeking the Demand
I did some research on various Atlassian community forums. I found that a lot of users are requesting Jira’s restricted comment feature on JSM, so the demand is there for the feature to be on JSM. Additionally, Atlassian wasn't prioritizing bringing this feature to JSM so the team saw this opportunity to do it for them.
Creating the New Flows
I developed a solution aimed at creating a simple and efficient flow to address key pain points. I organised a brainstorming session with my team to discuss the flow while considering the platform's limitations.
I drafted user flows for both the requester and the agent, visualising their navigation through the application. The developers outlined the backend flow, helping to scope requirements and prepare for development, which laid a valuable foundation for later wireframe drafting.
Crafting the Designs
Sketching and Iterating
Following thorough research, I began the process of wireframing the solution. I developed multiple versions to facilitate discussions with my product and engineering manager. Together, we aimed to determine which version, or combination of versions, would best align with our technical constraints and product vision.
Recognising the limitations of JSM’s platform in accommodating specific workflows, a close partnership with the engineering team was established to redesign the flow. This collaborative effort resulted in a more straightforward and practical solution that effectively addressed user needs.
Testing Different Variations
Several versions of the solution were created with the finalized wireframes in place. A/B testing conducted with internal stakeholders and general sentiment indicated a slight preference for a comment-like experience, however the usability scores contradicts this statement slightly as the note-like experience received a slightly higher score. The comment-like approach facilitates back-and-forth dialogue and allows for the creation of multiple Secure Notes, in contrast to a note-like experience that limits users to a single note at a time. However, due to time and resource constraints, the team decided to go with a note-like experience first and add the comment-like experience later in a future iteration.
Finalising the Prototype
With a preferred direction established, it's time to finalize designs for developers. Components from the Atlassian Design System were used for consistency. Popular plugins like Autoflow helped visualize the flow, easing the design-to-developer handoff. Information on Figma’s Dev Mode was provided to assist developers in inspecting designs and obtaining working code, thus speeding up development.
Feedback from Users
Secure Notes for JSM currently has 40 installs on the Atlassian Marketplace and has been getting positive feedback, with one of our customers stating:
“My team is using it with external customers to share passwords. The agents find the experience easy to use and have no complaints from our customers.” – Secure Notes Customer
Key Lessons Learned
This project was intricate, allowing me to engage in building a solution from the ground up. A key lesson was the importance of early collaboration with my team, especially as I was still learning JSM.
I also learned to value both design and business implications. Working closely with my PM helped me understand how the new application aligns with our company strategy. Here are three key takeaways:
Collecting and analysing user data is vital for creating a user-friendly product.
Implementing a robust authentication flow is crucial for applications handling sensitive information.
Strong encryption methods are essential for securely managing sensitive data.
Future Steps
Moving forward, usability testing will be conducted, and all user data will be collected. The focus will be on identifying the major pain points that users encountered while using the app.
The aim is to implement changes and brainstorm ideas based on the significant issues identified during this round of user testing.
Next, high-fidelity prototypes will be re-evaluated by revisiting the ideation process and arranging further user testing. This will involve asking more in-depth follow-up questions. This cycle will continue until the design demonstrates improved usability and increased conversion rates.
