CaptionHub

UX & product design, sales website design & build

October 2017 – March 2019

captionhub.com

Overview

CaptionHub required help with their existing online subtitle/captioning SaaS (software as a service) platform which pairs automatic speech recognition with a simple, managed workflow for everyone.
The software and running for a few years, and they had added functionality over time which had become convoluted and messy. The goal was to start afresh and redesign the software completely.

Background

I joined CaptionHub as a Senior UX Consultant, working directly with the CEO as well as internal lead developers. Over the years, the software features were added by the developers using Twitter bootstrap which gave them off the shelf, template designs. Nobody had worked with them on UX and UI considerations before.

Some key achievements include:

Overhauling the entire software and website, from the ground up. The existing software was complex and clunky and needed to be done from scratch.
Increased ease of use for various user types. In CaptionHub there are 5 different types of users. Between linguists, translators, project managers, admins, and super admins – each one had different access responsibilities within the app. I helped balance everything, so the software was optimised for multiple audiences whilst maintaining a consistent design language.

Understanding the problem

It was clear from the get-go, that too many features had been added over time with no initial groundwork laid down for the user journey. An audit was conducted to delve deeper into this, as well as the multiple types of users involved.

My audit included:

Understanding the constraints and weighing up pros and cons of the various possible directions to go in.
Clearly identifying the roles of each user and 5 different journeys.
Identifying potential edge case scenarios which may not have been considered.
Streamlining the information architecture for a restructure.

Wireframing the solution

Over the course of a month, multiple workshops were conducted to discuss functionality further and build on the initial audit with additional research from surveys ran with the users.

Based on this, I worked towards a number of solutions:

All pages of the software needed to be consolidated as some sections didn’t include necessary information for the user.
Changing the list view to a tile view to make it simpler to use.
Rehauling the entire navigation system, adding extra features such as a minutes remaining bar.
Identifying clear permission matrixes for different user types, what they see on screen and how we define these users.

Developing the designs

I created my high fidelity mockups in Photoshop and worked closely with the development team providing a detailed technical handover document so they could inspect the files. I then conducted a UX review of the finished build to ensure it was aligned with the designs before it went live.
In addition to this I defined the design library, including iconography, colour systems, button styles, fields and tag lozenges.
I was also tasked with the design and build of their sales website to sit alongside the paid software platform.