As a Salesforce Admin or Designer, the pages you create or configure have a huge impact on your Salesforce users. Your design choices can make the difference between users finding the information they need in seconds instead of minutes. The homepage is one of the most important pages you can design as it is often the entry point for users.
If you want to build a better Salesforce homepage, you’re in the right place! The truth is, I’ve seen a lot of customized versions in my work as a Lead Product Designer. See some examples below:
And they all have one thing in common: user research.
Now, I know what you’re going to say: You’re under pressure to deliver something quickly and the schedule doesn’t allow for it. My colleague and co-author, Lead Product Designer Steve Goforth, and I know exactly what that’s like.
The pressure is real. We’ve also found that slowing down and understanding users’ needs before jumping into design can produce more efficient and usable design.
When you ask the right people the right questions, you get information you might not get anywhere else. It’s also a way to gain empathy, get context, uncover pain points, and understand use cases or workflows that impact the experience.
So, we’ve devised a way to do this essential user research — without taking a lot of time.
To make a homepage that exceeds expectations, go ahead and plan for equal parts discovery, design, and feedback. They’re all steps in a human-centered design process. Read more in the Foundations of Design Thinking for Salesforce Admins blog post.
Watch the recorded presentation of “UX Design for Admins & Developers: A Homepage Case Study” from TrailheaDX.
Follow our 7 pro tips below to get started!
Make sure you’re asking all your who, what, why, when, and how questions. For specific prompts, see the image below. Once you have your questions, go back through and add or edit them to ensure they’re open-ended. When users feel free to share their full experience, you might be surprised by the helpful details they offer.
This gives the user time to fully collect their thoughts and process what they’re seeing. It might feel awkward at first, but you’ll be amazed at how many additional insights you’ll gain.
As you listen, be open to going off-script. Saying “Tell me more about that” is a great way to dig deeper into new ideas while maintaining neutrality — another critical skill to ensure users feel heard. Finally, as you wrap up, remember to ask for artifacts. It might be a screenshot of their most-used report or a video of how they use multiple windows.
After interviews are complete, review a summary of your notes with your users. Themes fall into many categories but here are some good places to start:
When you have insights like these, you’re ready to prototype something — and fast.
Think about the use case above prompting a win/loss graph on the Salesforce homepage. A low-fidelity prototype for that could be a hand drawing. Another option is to create a prototype in a Salesforce Sandbox (a copy of your customized production environment; see below) or the Salesforce Lightning App Builder (a point-and-click tool that makes it easy to create custom pages).
Note: We’ve actually seen win/loss rate graphs help teams. It’s one of the 12 sales metrics that perform well on Salesforce homepages. Your users may be asking for these best practices — or they may need something that works for their particular industry and workflow. The important thing is to validate the need with your users. Be open to their ideas when you share the design.
Ready to talk to users again? When you circle back and show them your prototype, creating breathing space is still ideal.
A good place to start is by asking, “How might you use this?” You can build on that by asking for red flags or moments of hesitation. For example: “What difference do you notice from your current experience?” “Do you have any concerns with the redesigned experience?” “Is there anything missing that would increase value?”
The goal is to better the design and make it the best experience possible. Sure, some added features may not be feasible. Some audiences might have different or competing needs compared to others. (Reminder: Admins can customize the Salesforce homepage for sales agents one way and managers or marketers another way.) However, if the designer stays open-minded and adaptable, then the user feels like they can share honestly.
And that’s how winning homepages — like the one below — get built.
When you practice a human-centered design process, everything is iterative — it’s Discovery-Design-Feedback on loop. The conversations never end and our creations are better for it. This is true for little things like form-field names and big moves like building a winning Salesforce homepage.
Want more tips on how to talk to your users, discover what they need, and influence design decisions? Learn how to add “Salesforce Certified User Experience (UX) Designer” to your resume here.
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