Background
When I arrived at the company, sales decks had no unifying palette. Each account executive used different colors and typefaces for their own decks. The decks also lacked a unified navigation system for jumping to backup slides when a concern would arise mid-presentation.
Working with other designers in the company, we standardized the color palette and typefaces to be used in all decks.
Research/Exploratory Testing
My specific task was to implement a discrete menu system that could be called and dismissed as needed. Several ideas were tested, many which used a small button in the corner of the presentation. Though initially well-received, the team decided they did not want the button to be visible. They also complained that the small, discrete button was too hard to click reliably. I then played with the idea of using the lower watermark as the click target, but the sales team still felt that it was too small, as well as disliking the menu rising from the bottom.
Wireframes
High Fidelity
Finally, I designed a solution where a large, invisible click target would be placed in the upper-right corner of every slide to bring down the menu. The menu would have a list of links to the various backup slides, and when the presenter was finished, they could return to their last slide by clicking on another large, invisible click target in the upper-left hand side of the backup slide. The entire menu could then be hidden by clicking on a third invisible target located just under the last button.
Takeaways
This project taught me the importance of the UX process even on seemingly miniscule, insignificant features. All the sales team wanted was a way to be able to navigate through slides without leaving the presentation. I could have easily just slapped something together and called it a day, but by researching, testing, and iterating, I was able to deliver an incredible quality of life improvement to the sales team by way of the decks they used every day to increase revenue to the company.