A Love Letter To Our New Product

Welcome to the New Weave Experience.

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The New Weave Experience represents an unprecedented leap forward in the integration of Product, Design, and Engineering within Weave, culminating from an 18+ month effort dedicated to significantly enhancing our customers' interactions with our services. This initiative is a reflection of our unwavering commitment to enriching customer experiences, manifested through feature enhancements, a more potent design that uplifts the user experience, and a concentrated effort to facilitate the completion of everyday tasks with a newfound sense of ease and pleasure. The transformation is evident in every facet of the New Weave Experience, designed to provide a modern, streamlined interface that minimizes context-switching and promotes efficient task completion through intuitive inter-feature interactions.

In addressing the challenges faced by our multi-location customers with the Legacy Application, the New Weave Experience introduces a comprehensive, well-integrated platform that eradicates the cumbersome need to switch between locations for basic functionalities such as messaging or calling. The overhaul extends beyond just operational enhancements; it encapsulates a holistic redesign that consolidates our various platforms—desktop app, portal, forms portal—into a singular, unified view, thereby eliminating clutter and ensuring that vital information remains forefront and accessible. This monumental shift is not just in the application's functionality but also in its development process, involving exhaustive stages from research to final testing, all aimed at delivering an optimal user experience. The culmination of these efforts is reflected in the positive feedback from our Closed Beta release, underscoring the significant impact of the New Weave Experience on simplifying complex workflows and substantially boosting efficiency for our users.

The Limitations of the Legacy Application

Drawing insights from our dedicated Product and Design teams, we've identified key areas where the legacy Weave application was not meeting our high standards for user experience and efficiency. Principal Product Designer Jason Parry noted the limitations imposed by the application's small form factor, which hindered our ability to embed complex, data-heavy workflows, thus stifling innovation. The technical debt accumulated over time also slowed down our ability to introduce new features promptly.

Adding to the conversation, Product Designer Jen Vo highlighted the user confusion caused by the need to navigate multiple platforms for different functionalities. This not only impacted our customers' experience but also led to inefficiencies within our team, necessitating duplicated efforts across different platforms. Director of Product Design Payge Kerman pointed out the specific struggles faced by our multi-location customers, who were unable to seamlessly manage multiple locations, leading to significant frustration.

Sr. Product Designer Michelle Parent noted that the cramming of features into the app, without a coherent structure, led to a cluttered and confusing user interface. Product Design Manager Ritu Jhanjhari emphasized the limitations due to the app's fixed size, lack of multi-location support, and the challenges in maintaining the legacy codebase. Their insights highlighted the need for a more scalable, integrated, and user-friendly solution that aligns with modern technology standards and user expectations.

These reflections from our design team have been instrumental in guiding the development of the New Weave Experience. We are excited to introduce a more cohesive, streamlined, and premium product that addresses these concerns, ensuring that our customers receive the best value and experience possible.

A Path to Greater Possibilities

In defining the vision and direction for the New Weave Experience, our team drew from a deep understanding of our users' profiles and their daily operational needs. We emphasized the adoption of familiar UX/UI patterns and the strategic alignment of our product with the specific requirements of our user base, which skews a bit older and less tech-savvy, yet heavily engaged in their office tasks. Our approach focused on enhancing efficiency by simplifying administrative tasks, reducing workload and data inaccuracies, and integrating feedback from a variety of sources to address the disjointed user experience and streamline the learning process. The direction for specific features, such as the Softphone, was informed by an intimate understanding of user workflows in various environments. The goal with the New Weave Experience is to balance accessibility and non-intrusiveness while refining usability to provide a more intuitive experience. We focused on the overarching intent to craft an application that caters to the entire spectrum of tech proficiency among our users. This collaborative vision for our design reflects a comprehensive strategy that incorporates user feedback, market analysis, and a commitment to creating a product that is not only efficient and effective, but also welcoming and engaging for all users.

A New Wave of Weave

The New Weave Experience boasts significant enhancements across various features, aimed at fostering a more organized, intuitive, and integrated user interface. The inbox has been expanded, introducing a more structured organization with folders, enhancing the ease of managing communications. A particularly user-friendly addition is the ability to pop out a chat and have it pinned to the bottom of the app, enabling multitasking without losing the thread of conversation. Noteworthy advancements in the Fax feature include the capability to create custom cover sheets and utilize a drag-and-drop builder for composing faxes, coupled with the introduction of custom-branded email campaigns (coming soon), elevating our platform's marketing tools. Additionally, the enhanced functionality of tags bolsters collaborative efforts, allowing team members to navigate and manage tasks more efficiently.

On a broader scale, the overhaul addresses the previously fragmented user experience, merging multiple touchpoints—Portal, Forms Dashboard, Desktop Client—into a single, unified application, thereby streamlining processes and boosting adoption rates. A pivotal addition is the multi-location support, allowing users to manage various locations seamlessly within one interface. The integration of features like Weave Insurance Verification, Forms, Quick Fill, and Contacts within the New Weave Experience has been deepened, eliminating disruptive workflow interruptions. For instance, the new design allows users to engage in a phone call, send a text, and access other essential tools simultaneously, a stark contrast to the legacy application where an active call would monopolize the screen. This holistic enhancement of the user interface and inter-feature integration exemplifies our commitment to delivering a more efficient, user-friendly, and cohesive digital environment for our customers.

Validating Our Vision

In shaping the New Weave Experience, our approach to validation has been deeply rooted in user engagement and data analysis. Every design decision has been guided by a commitment to address user requests and foster customer loyalty. Our features are born from a blend of user demand and strategic objectives aimed at enhancing customer allegiance. Notable insights often emerge from user interviews, where the interaction goes beyond mere observation, evolving into a collaborative design process with our users, ensuring that their voices and needs are central to our development.

Methods for validating design choices include customer interviews, Maze surveys, and analyses of adoption and usage data, complemented by insights from Pendo replays, clicks, and workflows, especially for designers like Krithiha R., whose feature is largely centered around the visualization of product usage. These activities have yielded direct requests from users for specific functionalities, such as ad-hoc form sending, customized message templates, and user-level notifications. The inclusion of highly requested features like the ability to share treatment plans for E-signature via email and SMS is a testament to our responsive design ethos. Furthermore, customer feedback has led to the implementation of an appointment dashboard and bulk messaging features, highlighting our commitment to refining the New Weave Experience in alignment with user needs and feedback, thus ensuring our users feel valued and integral to the design process.

We don't just design for our users, we design with them.

Embracing Change

As we introduce the New Weave Experience, one anticipated challenge for our users, particularly our existing ones, revolves around acclimatizing to the revamped interface. The transition to a new system often requires an adjustment period, as users familiarize themselves with the updated layout and functionalities. Our team recognizes that while this learning curve is inevitable, the intuitive design and user-centered enhancements of the New Weave Experience are crafted to streamline this transition, ultimately providing a more efficient and enjoyable user experience.

This concern is particularly pronounced for our current customers, who are deeply engaged in their vital work of patient and client care. For these users, our software is a critical tool that aids in their day-to-day operations. Learning a new interface might momentarily divert their focus, demanding an initial investment of time and energy to master the new system. However, we believe that this initial period of adaptation will pave the way for a more seamless and productive interaction with our software, as the improvements in the New Weave Experience are designed to re-establish, and even enhance, the habitual ease with which our users leverage our tools to support their work. The transition, though it may present initial hurdles, is expected to yield significant long-term benefits in user efficiency and satisfaction.

Empowering Connections: The Promise of the New Weave Experience

As we unveil the New Weave Experience, our commitment to providing an unparalleled user experience remains at the forefront of our endeavors. We've meticulously crafted the New Weave Experience with our customers' needs, feedback, and workflows in mind, aiming to deliver a platform that not only meets–but exceeds–their expectations. Our sincere hope is that this new experience will not only enhance the day-to-day operations of our customers, but also open doors to new possibilities and opportunities for their businesses. By aligning our innovations with the aspirations and requirements of our users, we're not just offering a software update; we're inviting our customers to embark on a journey of growth, efficiency, and enhanced connectivity. Weave's dedication to creating meaningful, impactful user experiences is embodied in our new interface, and we eagerly anticipate the positive changes it will bring to our customers and their interactions with our product.