Liam
Confluence
Snapshot
✨ Highlights
- Scaled design from 3 designers to 10+ designers
- Developed and maintained processes for our growing team
- Strategic partner on Confluence’s Next Play strategy
- Reinvented Confluence as a collaborative tool for every team
🎯 Impact
- Increased YoY growth from ~40% to 52%
- Increased ARR by over 400%
Summary
During my time on Confluence, we scaled the design team from 3 to 12+ designers while delivering a strategy and vision for the product that would guide the next 3+ years of development. This page provides a snapshot from a larger case study that I’ve prepared for past panel presentations.
📫 Want to learn more about my work or go deeper on a case study? Get in touch.
Confluence’s Next Play
In collaboration with my cross-functional partners and Atlassian’s executive team, we developed a 6-pager strategy to reinvent Confluence. Our goal was to reinvent Confluence as a modern, collaborative workspace for every team. Confluence’s Next Play would guide the next 3+ years of development.
Our 6-pager strategy to reinvent Confluence
3 strategic pillars
Show, don’t tell
During the strategy workshops, I teamed up with Confluence’s lead designers to envision Confluence’s Next Play. The goal of this exercise was to render our strategy and to align and inspire our team. Use the image slider to compare the before and after screenshots.
Your work
Space directory
Searching for a page
Page options and metadata
Choosing a template
Inline apps and macros
Competitive product mapping
During this time, I was also encouraging the team to push on the edges of our product design and IA. One method I used to help unlock new creative directions was to map Confluence’s objects and information architecture on top of a competitor’s product. One such example of this was mapping Confluence’s objects and IA on top of InVision. Although not intended to be a shippable design, this exploration generated a lot of buzz and would influence the future direction of Atlassian’s navigation redesign. Confluence + InVision = Influence 😉
Mapping Confluence’s objects and IA on top of InVision
Mapping Confluence’s objects and IA on top of InVision
Mapping Confluence’s objects and IA on top of InVision
Building momentum
With our strategy and vision in hand, we needed to onboard our team to the new direction. Alongside my leadership team, we planned and facilitated a series of workshops to generate energy and momentum for Confluence’s Next Play.
Workshopping Confluence’s Next Play
Workshopping Confluence’s Next Play
Execution
Confluence’s Next Play would drive the next 3+ years of development. These are just a couple of examples of projects we delivered during the 18 months following the delivery of our strategy and vision.
Drag and drop
A low hanging fruit effort to improve the usability of reordering pages in Confluence. The byproduct of this effort was an increase in the # of users reordering pages and the # of pages moved. Encouraging signals for a product whose success would be rooted in managing the needs of ever larger teams. A more organized space is a more productive space.
Drag and drop
Impact
The Confluence editor
One of the most complex projects in Confluence’s history. Redesigning the editor for a large active user base with a myriad of complex and nuanced use cases required a deeply researched and thorough design effort. Huge kudos to Jazz Ernest for leading the design effort.
The Confluence editor
Team culture
It was an immense privilege to lead the Confluence design team.
Team offsite in Sydney
Goofing off
📫 Want to learn more about my work or go deeper on a case study? Get in touch.