I didn’t want to frustrate customers with constant upselling opportunities so we made sure to tie these upgrade recommendations to the data to make it compelling.
Part of the requirements was to surface an upgrade recommendation when users hit 90% of their max bandwidth utilization. We were already surfacing a separate upgrade recommendation based on different factors at the top of the page. We asked stakeholders if they felt strongly about having both, which they did, so we made the focus of this feature the data- not the upsell.
We wanted to facilitate understanding in the user with visualizations.
We had to show users’ upload and download bandwidth usage for the most recent 24 hours as well as a way for them to review the usage of any day in the last 6 months. We were also asked to provide the percentage of time the user utilized their max bandwidth allotment.
We met with the data science team that was providing the logic for the upgrade recommendation. We took this opportunity to better understand how customers’ usage patterns would affect their experience. This helped us accurately create copy that would avoid legal approval issues later on.
I made journals of all my thoughts to find solutions.
I suggested streamlining what we were presenting to make it easy for our layman user to understand.
The max utilization rate proved to be a tricky metric. Upon initial analysis I misinterpreted this data. I initially thought this metric was showing the general utilization percentage for that particular week/month. After further revision, I realized this was actually representing the percentage of time the user hit their max utilization. After speaking with my team, we determined that this chart was misleading and not as useful as the peak upstream/downstream data. I advocated to remove it, which they approved.
The original feature name was ‘Peak Bandwidth.’ I felt strongly that this name was confusing as ‘peak’ was ambiguous here and we were showing data that wasn’t related to a peak. I advocated changing the name to ‘Bandwidth Usage’ which was more clear and consistent with the existing ‘Data Usage’ information we already displayed.
We placed this info next to similar data for easy network analysis.
We already had a ‘Networks & Activity’ section which was the perfect spot for this additional info. By reducing the data we were showing, we were able to put both upstream and downstream info side by side for easy viewing and avoided additional layers of navigation.
Tooltips provided intelligible context for users to confidently make plan upgrade decisions.
This additional copy with visual cues empower the user with data they need.
We always design for breakpoints and scenarios.
We asked users what they thought of this feature.
Our initial concerns about having two upgrade recommendations were put to rest by the feedback we received. 5/7 users didn’t mind when both upgrade recommendations appeared simultaneously. They appreciated being notified so they can ensure to avoid disruptions or degradation in their service.
We got data back from our research that we were able to disseminate across departments.
We found that over-utilization of upload bandwidth was way more common than download. There are limited plan offerings and users can’t choose to upgrade only their upload or download speeds. We additionally got feedback from users that they’d like more flexibility in their plan selection. We passed this information off to the sales team in hopes that they can expand plan offerings in the future.
My Plan
Previously, we had My Plan at the top of the page because we know a lot of users log into the dashboard just to see this. However, I do think it makes sense to restructure some things to bring this new bandwidth data next to My Plan. We want to facilitate understanding to users by providing a benchmark for comparison to analyze. Also, for users who do understand this correlation, it makes sense to have these two data points next to each other since their going to put them against each other. I’m unsure if it’s best to just bring all the bandwidth data up because that will push the network health and services and equipment cards down which is also important info.
Metrics
Max utilization rate does seem like a good metric to display upon first glance but after digging into this more, I would advocate for a more straight-forward metric. Although this number does seem to be relevant to this work, I am worried that users will misinterpret this data since they need to frame one percentage into another. Ex: if their max utilization is 45% they need to understand that they are using 100% of their max plan 45% of the time. This could easily be misunderstood by thinking that they only ever reach 45% of their max plan. Instead I would advocate for showing their average usage for the past 2 weeks (we will be using the most recent 2 weeks of data to inform the recommendation).
