Indicators — conditions
Reducing friction in one of the most-used CRM workflows
Role:
Lead Product Designer (hands-on)
Product:
Maxo (B2B CRM platform)
Scope:
UX strategy, interaction design, system modelling
Impact area:
Feature adoption, task success, time-to-value
Outcome (high level):
Redesigned the conditions experience to reduce cognitive load, clarify progress, and significantly shorten time to first success—without removing flexibility from a power-user feature.
Why it could be interesting for you:
This case demonstrates my strength in systems thinking and scalable design—solving complexity by redesigning the model, not just the interface.
What?
The problem
Indicators are heavily used but hard to configure.
Users had to manage complex conditions across disconnected settings and a static preview, making it difficult to understand progress or results.
At the same time:
Users had to manage complex conditions across disconnected settings and a static preview, making it difficult to understand progress or results.
At the same time:
- Creating conditions required jumping between settings and a static preview
- Conditions consumed excessive screen space with little hierarchy
- The refinement process had grown complex due to many edge cases
- Users struggled to understand what they had already configured
- The feature worked—but only after significant effort.
So what?
The real problem
This wasn’t just a UI density problem.
The deeper issue was loss of orientation.
Users couldn’t easily answer: “What have I already done?” “What is affecting my result?” “What should I do next?”
Complexity wasn’t the enemy—invisible structure was.
The query creation flow was unnecessarily large in scope and hard for users to understand.
The deeper issue was loss of orientation.
Users couldn’t easily answer: “What have I already done?” “What is affecting my result?” “What should I do next?”
Complexity wasn’t the enemy—invisible structure was.
The query creation flow was unnecessarily large in scope and hard for users to understand.
Strategic tension
There were two competing needs:
Preserve flexibility for advanced use cases
Reduce friction for everyday usage
Simplifying by removing options would break trust with power users.
Keeping everything visible overwhelmed everyone else.
The challenge was to design a model that scales with user intent.
Preserve flexibility for advanced use cases
Reduce friction for everyday usage
Simplifying by removing options would break trust with power users.
Keeping everything visible overwhelmed everyone else.
The challenge was to design a model that scales with user intent.
Key insights from usability tests
From usability testing and internal usage analysis:
Edge cases inflated complexity
Supporting all cases equally made the common path harder.
- Users thought in results, not settings
- They cared about the outcome, not where the rule lived.
- The preview felt disconnected (A static preview didn’t help users understand cause and effect.)
- Users struggled to set conditions, because the labels, actions and visual structure were confusing
Edge cases inflated complexity
Supporting all cases equally made the common path harder.
Now what?
Design strategy — Collapse the Gap
The core strategic decision:
Reduce the mental gap between configuration and outcome by making the condition flow intuitive and seamless.
Key principles:
This shifted the design from “form + preview” to interactive feedback and adding visual clarity
Reduce the mental gap between configuration and outcome by making the condition flow intuitive and seamless.
Key principles:
- Results and rules should live together
- Progress should be visible at all times
- Users should act directly on what they see
- Set conditions should be clear at a glance
This shifted the design from “form + preview” to interactive feedback and adding visual clarity
What I designed
I led the UX strategy and hands-on redesign, focusing on scaling clarity without removing flexibility.
- Turned the static preview into an interactive grid
- Reduced cognitive load through clearer hierarchy and primary actions
- Designed a reusable interaction model that scales across indicators
- Completely reworked the condition settings to save space and improve readability.
I led:
- Problem framing and success criteria
- UX model redesign for conditions
- Alignment with engineering on feasibility and constraints
I also worked hands-on:
- Interactive grid as both output and control
- Reduced visual noise through hierarchy
- Clear mapping between conditions and results
- Patterns designed to be reusable across indicators
- This wasn’t a one-off solution—it became a model.
Key decisions
Decision 1:
Rethink space usage by making the Grid Interactive
Why:
The grid already represented the outcome—users trusted it.
Trade-off:
Increased interaction complexity.
Outcome:
Users could:
- Add columns directly from the grid
- Configure conditions in context
- Instantly see impact on results
Decision 2:
Establish clear, focused condition-setting rules
Why:
Clarifying condition-setting rules simplifies decision-making, reduces cognitive load, errors, and improves user confidence.
Trade-off:
Some edge actions became secondary.
Outcome:
Lower cognitive load and faster condition creation, improved learnability, especially for new or infrequent users.
Decision 3:
Design for overview first
Why:
Users needed a clear summary of work done.
Trade-off:
Less emphasis on advanced tuning upfront.
Outcome:
Improved sense of progress and control.
Impact
- Time to first successful indicator — ~8 min → ~3 min
- Task success rate — new users 41% → 63%, experienced users held at ~82%
- Context switches removed — e.g. configuration went from 3 disconnected screens to 1 interactive grid
- Feature adoption — share of accounts creating conditions, directional uplift
- Most importantly: The feature became powerful and approachable
Gallery