A powerful proof of concept
Designing a centralized system that combines PMI's proprietary content into a cohesive and engaging customer experience for its members.
The current digital experience and supporting document management solution for PMI's flagship publication, the PMBOK Guide, was not meeting our customers' needs and was built using outdated technology that was no longer supported by a development team. The business reached out to our digital experience team to help them improve the user experience and find a new solution to support the distribution of their most valued intellectual property.
We knew upfront that any solution we came up with would require a big investment. Developing a POC enables our team to pinpoint risks and obstacles they may face in implementing the proposed solution before development begins. Verifying not only the feasibility of the idea but also its scalability, whether immediately or over time, increasing the likelihood of success and giving us the best chance for stakeholder buy-in.
As a learning resource the current solution lacks basic functionality that enables learning and application of its content. Adding highlights, taking notes, and bookmarking features are non-existent. Users digest and absorb in different ways, the ability to customize, curate, and personalize is lacking today.
Users are seeking unauthorized digital copies, creating a market for pirated content. Customers experience a long, unnecessary and outdated password security process. Download ability is fragile, hindering the access users are entitled to and does not support seamless cross-device access.
The current solution does not support easy access and distribution for our B2B customers, a giant missed opportunity. Finally, the current experience is not ADA, WCAG or Section 508* compliant.
PMI’s intellectual property spans content types, from books and magazines to videos and podcasts, their content is siloed across products and teams creating a disjointed user experience.
Because our customers had diverse needs—changing from industry to industry—we had to focus on building a flexible solution instead of an optimized solution.
When focusing on an adaptive solution, we ran the risk of overwhelming users. We approached the solution space with a strong principle of sensible defaults: deliver the insights we can up front but allow the user to deviate on their terms when necessary.
90% of the time leveraging consistent patterns will help in your product’s overall understandability. However, an inconsistent/novel experience is sometimes warranted if for interactions that are highly specialized.
With an established need and clear understanding of where the experiences was lacking we started brainstorming for the right solution, keeping in mind that anything we come up with should be feasible and within the company’s capacities. We assessed each solution according to the likely costs, technologies needed, competition, resources, and other factors.
With an established need and clear understanding of where the experiences was lacking we started brainstorming for the right solution, keeping in mind that anything we come up with should be feasible and within the company’s capacities. We assessed each solution according to the likely costs, technologies needed, competition, resources, and other factors.
As we moved through the process our definition of the problem space became much clearer. While there were still lots of details to iron out, the concept was ready to be visualized, a content app that provides a personalized, immersive and engaging experience for members looking to grow their knowledge of project management. By providing customers with a rich hub framework that delivers thematic-based content in one place users are able to curate and customize their learning experience.
Presenting to stakeholders throughout the process we successfully communicated how the app's top features can achieve the desired business outcomes. We validated assumptions and illustrated how a new content library app could be a viable solution for PMI's membership. With stakeholder buy-in we can move to the implementation phase.
