Veracode: Platform Integrations

Problem

Veracode has a flagship product called “Platform” that scans software applications for security vulnerabilities and reports on them. In order to stay dominant in the marketplace with new competitors entering the industry regularly, we decided to more tightly integrate our applications into our customers' chosen development tools.

One of the challenges was that there were over one hundred different applications customers were using to create and maintain their custom software code. Another hurdle was making the integration process so simple and intuitive that users could fine-tune their integration settings without having to read extensive documentation every time.

Role

Lead UX designer

Constraints

• Rolling out integration capabilities for new applications on a monthly basis.
• Creating UIs that are intuitive enough that users can pick up how to configure them after not having used them for months.

Project Timeline

An ongoing project started in 2016 with new applications added to the integrations collection on a monthly basis.

Approach

1. Create a way for users to access API hooks that all the integrations could tie into including security validation.
2. Create a list of the types of software applications that would benefit the most from such an integration.
   1. One-on-one interviews with clients
   2. Industry research to see which IDEs (integrated development environments) were the most popular and easiest to work with.
3. Start with integrating the application scanning into IDEs
   1. We found IDE programming experts on IDE forums and hired those qualified as consultants to better understand what the UI limitations are in custom IDE plugins
   2. After looking over the research and talking with the team we decided to work on the Eclipse plugin first, then IntelliJ, and finally Visual Studio Code.
   3. Wireframes were created using Sketch and were brought through design review with the UX team
   4. Refined designs were shown to four clients who answered a collection of questions in three categories: their persona, how they do their jobs with IDEs, and general feedback on their current flaw-finding process and the new designs shown.
   5. Clients were asked how they would rate the designs on a scale of 1-10 and what would make it a 10.
   6. We worked closely with developers to make sure the quality of the designs was maintained in the finished product.
4. Move on to integrating with bug tracking tools like Jira.
   1. We worked with the project managers to define what functionality should be in the Jira plugin.
   2. Elaborate workflow diagrams were created that spelled out how any software flaws that were discovered would be classified and categorized in Jira, while allowing users the ability to configure a wide variety of ways the flaws could be imported and assigned.
   3. UI designs were created and brought through peer design review with the UX team.
   4. Key stakeholders including the tech lead and the product manager of project signed off on the design.
   5. Designs were handed off to development.
5. Reassess customers needs, and continue adding new tools and UIs.
   1. Industry research was continued into the new and up-and-coming tools that developers were using, and plans were made to integrate Platform into those tools as well.

Results

The first release of the integrations tools was a huge success. In their first year in the marketplace they were the fastest-growing products by revenue the company had ever released. They were also given a major mention in the company’s annual meetings with shareholders and within the company’s yearly conference.

The project is still ongoing and is a fundamental part of Veracode’s continued dominance in the application security sector.

I have applied for two patents based on my research, and one was formally submitted to the patent office. The first was for a code merge gate that would scan any code that was different from the trunk for security flaws before merge. The second proposal was for scanning applications as while they were running, and comparing the results from the last time a different version of the code ran.

Artifacts

Integrations code pipeline flow diagram

SaaS application landing page redesign

IDE plugin UI elements for Greenlight

One of two resulting patents I was the sole inventor on

Flow diagram for the automatic creation of Jira tickets from flaw scans

Jira plugin integration settings

Resulting automatically generated Jira ticket

Validity: CRM Trust Assessment

Problem

Companies who rely on CRM (customer relationship management) systems find it difficult to ascertain the quality of their data. This, in turn, makes it difficult for companies to know how much their sales and marketing campaigns waste by reaching out to customers twice, or not at all due to corrupted data. Tracking customer satisfaction is also challenging.

Validity created a tool to facilitate quarterly assessments of data for customers, and this tool needed to be both visually appealing and intuitive to use.

Role

Lead UX designer

Constraints

• A four-month deadline to conceptualize, design, implement and launch the application.
• We could only work with Salesforce systems in the first version.
• The application needed to work on a customer’s desktop which meant that there was no remote access to their data through our servers.

Project Timeline

Four months from conception to launch.

Approach

1. Research the brand guidelines for the company.
2. Review the feedback we were getting on a very crude MVP version of the preliminary application.
3. Create a user flow presentation for the heads of the company to give them an idea of how the user would experience the report generation flow.
4. Generate a collection of data visualizations that were socialized with the project managers PMs working on the project and were refined down to what we most wanted to convey in the 22-page report.
5. Create the wire-frames for the client-server application UI that would help users initiate and organize the reports.
6. Refine the UX of the report over many iterations and seek worked to get its final approval from the company’s CEO.

Results

Launch was three days ahead of schedule.

The executives of the companies were thrilled with the final product and held a company-wide meeting to announce it.

It was declared the company’s new flagship product.

Artifacts

UX/UI design for data cleansing report

UX/UI design for CRM data maintenance system

UX/UI design for CRM data maintenance system

UX/UI design for SalesForce data utility

Designed component library and standards document for all applications in the company

UX/UI design for purchasing website

Journey map for CRM reporting application

Visual design for CRM data quality report

UX/UI for managing past CRM data quality reports

Aquent: Advanced Talent Communication

Problem

Aquent is a fourteen-hundred employee design talent placement agency located in Boston. In order to job orders before our competitors, we needed a way to target and contact talent fast. The faster we are able to submit qualified candidates to a job order, the more likely we are to fill the role.

Role

Lead UX designer

Constraints

• Different candidates preferred to be contacted in different ways.
• One of the major selling points of the company is that we have excellent relationships with the talent and do not want to tarnish that with unwelcome communication.

Project Timeline

Two months from conception to launch.

Approach

1. Gather internal statistics on how quickly talent responds to conventional email using internal reporting tools, such as Pendo.
2. Do one-on-one research with talent agents to ascertain how quickly our competitors are submitting batches of talent for job orders.
3. Talk with clients in one-on-one research about how time-sensitive certain orders are and what they do, and don’t like about their current process.
4. Work with the lead project manager on the possibility of having the system default to contact talent about new jobs via text instead of email.
5. Hold a crazy-8 design session online with the developers, PM, and UX team to brainstorm different approaches while remaining sensitive to technical constraints.
6. Create process flow mapss for users getting texts by default if we have their phone information.
7. Work through issues around time zone differences and the appropriate delay of messages to working hours.
8. Create the UI designs needed to allow users to see updates on the talent they have reached out to and whether they have responded.

Results

In just the first week, talent responded inat an average of 23 minutes after receiving a text message about a job compared to 1.5 days via email.

There was a yearly 12% increase in job order fill rates resulting in projected millions of dollars of additional revenue.

Artifacts

Concept/UX/UI/Visual design for a tool to help better align client and recruiter expectations

UX/UI for mobile talent acquisition application

UX/UI design for responsive diversity and inclusion form

Content/visual design of personas

Organized a cross team Crazy-8 exercise for UX ideation

Visual designer and leader of a company wide "Design Guild" to promote better design practices

Researcher and designer of main site map

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Cengage - MindTap

MineralTree - Cash Flow

Putnam Investments - MyPutnam

Empirix - EXMS

Validity - Brand Standardization