symplr

Business challenges hindering growth

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As symplr has grown to lead the healthcare compliance & credentialing industry, they have acquired key players in the space to increase their market share and value. As with any type of merger, there are complications when bringing disparate products together.

In the instance of the Form Builder tool, the product team at symplr was running up against project impediments during the development process due to a lack of reusable components. There was also a desire for more unification in the product suite to increase velocity down the road, as well as a need to leverage user feedback within the overall roadmap.

Crema was approached to bridge the gap between where the Form Builder tool was & where they wanted to go.

Objectives of the engagement

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In March 2019, our teams set out on a 6-week engagement to accomplish the following goals:

• Remove development blockers by delivering essential UI components
• Continue momentum towards the unification of reusable products and standards across the symplr tool suite
• Utilize existing user feedback to guide component-focused UI/UX decisions, while being mindful of symplr’s goal for longterm integration

It was important to think about the the UI component library specific to the Form Builder, but also how it might be used throughout the suite of tools. It needed to be streamlined, straight-forward, and reusable. Pulling from Material UI, our teams collaborated closely to create a sustainable path forward for symplr’s product suite.  

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Strategic process

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Strategy & Alignment

To begin, our teams came together for a Strategy & Alignment session that set the tone for the engagement. During this time, our teams went through a series of exploratory exercises to gain a shared understanding on:

• Mission, vision, goals and objectives
• The people involved and their roles, responsibilities, goals, pain points, and opportunities
• Technical capabilities and desires
  

This session was conducted in order to optimize value to the customer and focus our engagement’s objectives. Once that was completed, our team was able to dive into creating the first round of prototype designs.  

Design creation

Crema and symplr collaborated over the duration of the engagement to design and iterate on different components within the Form Builder tool. With the feedback collected from internal stakeholders and users, we landed on an impactful and user-centric flow for the Form Builder tool.

Component creation

After confidence had been established for the direction of the designs, Crema began to develop the necessary components that were designed within the UI. These aspects would be utilized by the symplr development team so that they may bring to life the ideas, concepts, and UX created during this engagement.

Insights behind the solution

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After the initial Strategy & Alignment session, our teams understood that these components would be the catalyst for the full product suite. There was a desire for the UI design to be based on Material UI, but it needed to be customized to some degree, leaning toward something more “subtle.” We collaborated with symplr to set expectations for what this meant, ultimately arriving at a phrase called “subtle + 1.” This brought clarity and alignment to our team with a shared vision for the UI Library.

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When it came to the HTML/CSS, it was important for this to be as seamless as possible for the development team. We identified the specific stack symplr would be working in. From this, our team created components that would increase efficiency and provide a unified product suite once implemented.

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Results

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Our teams were able to accomplish the original goals of the engagement – creating a UI library to unify the product suite. At the end of the 6 weeks, symplr walked away with:

• A UI component library delivered in GitHub
• HTML/CSS and SCSS files for the components
• All final designs delivered via Sketch & InVision