Simplifying Monday's Automations
Challenge
Monday.com is seeing low adoption of the new Automations feature. Users were getting overwhelmed by technical terminology and logic based setup.
Research
We ran 5 Moderated Usability Studies over GMeet to find behavioural and attitudinal issues with current flow. The participants represented 3 User Personas: The Switcher, The Sceptic and The Impatient that simulated their user base.
Key Findings
100% of the testers abandoned the feature before experiencing it's core value.
Construction: Monday's ideal users don't want to be engineering automations, they want a quick win. Forcing them to build automation logic from scratch leads to major friction.
Jargon: Using internal database logic 'Items/Sub-items' forces the users to translate jargon into their own workflow, causing them to leave the feature because of cognitive overload.
"I'm not sure what I need to do [with the automations]... I would avoid this part."
Tamara, Service Business Owner. (The Switcher)
Design Iterations
As this was a simple fix, there were no iterations necessary to see the activation skyrocket.
We realized that even simple templates still required users to input variables (When this happens, do that). Instead we went with a zero config approach. We replaced variable-heavy builders with toggles that were specific to the user's profile. For sales reps, we used 'Sales Language' (Leads/Deals). The result moved the user from a 3-minute logic challenge to a 30 second automation win.
Impact
TTV Reduced from 3m+ to <30 seconds for core automation setup.
Up to 73% increase in users activating completing their first automation in first session (This was literally 0 users in the tests).