Crossbeam contacted us at Underbelly to perform a Discovery Sprint on their partnership app, Partnerbase. Partnerbase aims to be the world’s largest database of partnerships between companies - the Wikipedia of partnership information. Since launching in 2020, they have added many great features but wanted to improve how users consume, edit, and discover partnership information.
Together, we researched, ideated, and tested new concepts Crossbeam could introduce to the platform. The Discovery Sprint was a huge success, and Crossbeam released three new updates.
Our work stemmed from adding more data fields users could use to filter or fill out company profiles. The stakeholders at Crossbeam had already put a lot of thought into what data fields they could add, giving us the challenge of updating the app everywhere it touched.
01. Company Information
At the top of every company page is the Company’s information, with relevant info about it and its partnerships. When adding the new data fields - increasing from 7 to 12 - we broke the data into “General Info” and “Partnership Info” to make the area glanceable and manageable. We also removed redundant copy on the page that rephrased the bullet points into paragraph form.
We had already received feedback that the current editing method - a modal - was jarring to users. They would see information that needed changing and click “Edit Company,” only to find the section in a different location on a modal. The new data fields made editing the company information even more complex. Crossbeam wanted the editing process quick and easy, so we took inspiration from Notion and made the fields editable where they lived.
02. Add Company
The new data fields complicate how the user adds a company to Partnerbase. The number of fields was overwhelming for one page, and most data was optional. We broke the information into three sections to help focus the user on typing the information they were inputting. Before saving, the user gets the chance to review the data. The accordion drop-downs allow users to focus on one section at a time.
03. Filter
With new data, we needed a new way of filtering. Before, applying one filter with drop-downs within drop-downs took multiple clicks. We pulled all the filters to the forefront and highlighted the applied filters. This allowed for an easier time digging down and discovering new partnerships. We also reworked the information drop-down to match the company info at the top of the page.
Results
For the final day of the sprint, we conducted an A/B test to compare the new designs to the old ones. Our goal was to determine if the new assumptions would help partner managers discover partnerships and if the latest data was helpful to them. The testing returned extremely positive, concluding with Crossbeam publishing the new designs last month. If you’re interested in checking out the work, visit Partnerbase at www.partnerbase.com.