TL;DR: I co-designed a bulk image uploader for the USDA’s most popular website–overcoming vague requirements and intense technical constraints. The UX designer and I followed a design-thinking approach to guide the team through discovery and iteration, solving for technical, business, and user needs.
Case study at a glance
- Client: U.S. Department of Agriculture
- User need: Content managers need to upload >20,000 plant images to the PLANTS website
- My role: Senior content strategist (co-led design, research, and iteration)
- Team: 1 UX designer, 6 engineers, 4 business stakeholders
- Outcome: Clarified goals and priorities, aligned stakeholders, and delivered validated prototypes for an image uploader
The challenge
As a senior content strategist at Cadmus, I designed clear, accessible, and genuinely helpful services and tools. This project focused on the content management system (CMS) that federal employees use to maintain the PLANTS website, which serves 1 million visitors per year.
Our stakeholders needed a mechanism to upload plant images to the website.
Designing this feature/workflow was especially challenging, for a few key reasons:
- The business stakeholders and engineers each had their own mental model for how the feature would work, but the project lacked clear requirements. We were working from four sentences the scrum master drafted in JIRA.
- The team lacked familiarity with user experience, user-centered design, and content strategy. They expected the UX designer and I to “spin up” screens without much input or lead time.
- The website was built on an antiquated database with seemingly endless technical constraints. The engineers sometimes struggled to make sense of the website’s back end.
The opportunity
The goal of the image upload feature was to empower the content managers to upload more than 20,000 images to the PLANTS website (a 10-year backlog). Adding fresh images would serve a key user need: website visitors often contacted support complaining about outdated images or lack of images on plant profiles.
Example plant profile, images:
Our approach
I co-led the image upload project with our UX designer to uncover user needs, align stakeholders, and design an intuitive upload flow. We followed a design thinking approach to create clarity from chaos.
1. Empathize
I led discovery sessions with content managers (business stakeholders) and engineers to explore their needs, concerns, and mental models. We also conducted comparative analysis to explore best practices for “bulk image upload” across various brands.
2. Define
I used the MoSCoW method to document and prioritize feature requirements from business stakeholders. This step was critical to align all the project contributors on what the initial release would and would not do (from a functionality perspective).
3. Ideate
The UX designer started sketching low-fidelity prototypes of the “image upload” flow. I advised on the content hierarchy, step sequences, UX copy, and overall clarity of the early stage designs. We worked together to make sure this complex workflow felt intuitive for our users.
4. Test
We iterated rapidly–oftentimes getting feedback from the engineering team and business stakeholders on a Monday, creating new variations of the designs, and presenting the next iteration by Wednesday. The designer created five iterations throughout the project.
Example low-fidelity prototype. Select image to enlarge.
“What went well was ranking design decisions as high, low, or no stakes and using that to inform when and how much time we spent on each.” -Max, UX designer
Applying user insights to guide design
One insight I discovered: users were worried they may lose their progress as they progress through the multi-step upload flow. I designed the content to instill user confidence that their work is saved and clearly communicate when they are free to close the window/leave the page.
The messages for each step use plain language to communicate key details, at a glance:
Despite our best efforts, the process to upload images would feel convoluted at some moments for our users. The UX designer and engineer worked together to overcome technical constraints to make bulk uploading possible. It was my job to communicate those constraints to our users in a clear and empathetic way.
For example, if the user uploads images during business hours, they must wait until midnight for their files to finish processing. This constraint came from the USDA’s database which processed big files during off-hours to avoid website slowdowns. Unfortunately, that means the user has to start uploading one day and finish the process the next day. But we designed the flow to empower users to make progress while they waited.
This status message says “Images pending resize. They will be resized at midnight. You can begin editing their metadata now and safely close PLANTS Admin to continue your work at any time.”
Impact and results
I’m proud the bulk image uploader project drove key outcomes for our client:
- Strengthened partnerships among design, engineering, and business stakeholders
- Clarified requirements for a critical feature, ensuring unspoken expectations were met
- Enabled developers to estimate build effort with new clarity
- Applied creativity and expertise to revise designs–shifting steps, redesigning screens, and revising content
- Designed and iterated quickly to meet user needs and ensure feature feasibility
- Ensured all team members felt understood and bought into the design process
- Provided clear artifacts for contributors to discuss, without committing to UX designs too early
- Delivered 5 validated design iterations
- Reduced confusion around feature scope by specifying must-have and deferrable requirements
Unfortunately the UX designer and I were furloughed from this project due to budget cuts across the U.S. government. Although we weren’t able to launch these designs, we set the remaining team up for success if/when resources allow them to revisit this feature.
