Context

My Role

Product Designer, Design system

Team

Clementine Grisvard (Product Designer)
Philipp Timmalog (Front-end Lead)

Timeline & Status

September 2021 - February 2022

Tools

Adobe XD, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, and Zuora

Project Link

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Overview

ABB Ability™ solutions platform simplifies business operations in energy management in industrial applications, offering a range of digital tools for improved performance and growth enabling smarter decision making. The ABB Ability Marketplace™ provides access to cloud-based applications, reports, remote support services, and more, tailored to different industries.

As the Product Designer, I led the redesign of the ABB Ability™ B2B Marketplace, a data-intensive platform. The core challenge was integrating highly complex subscription logic (Zuora), one-time payments, and add-ons while balancing the need for transparent price visualization and contextual upsell.

Zuora Integration & Subscription Friction & Trust

The integration of diverse and conditional pricing models (subscriptions, trials, add-ons) via Zuora's financial logic created massive user confusion. This technical opacity, compounded by the Salesforce framework limitations, made pricing rules overly complex, which destroyed buyer trust and led to high cart abandonment, posing a significant risk to revenue growth.

Guided Configuration

Strategic Flow Design Maximise Contextual Upsell.

To address the challenge of navigating diverse pricing models, we introduced a simple product configuring step before adding items to the cart. This feature allows users to easily configure product details, such as frequency, devices, and add-ons, strategically maximizing contextual upsell in a clear, intuitive manner.

The revised flow added a key configuration step ( Select Product → Configure Product ) to ensure users actively engaged with customization options, leading to higher final order value.

Checkout Integrity

Transparent Checkout Boosts Trust and Conversion Rates.

Our approach focused on simplifying the checkout flow, offering clear instructions, and presenting complex pricing details transparently. We enhanced the presentation of pricing details, ensuring users can fully understand the cost breakdown and any additional charges, boosting conversion rates and reducing abandoned carts.

We introduced an extra step for product configuration and billing confirmation, along with easy access to terms and conditions before order confirmation. This ensures the user feels full control and legal certainty over the high-value B2B transaction.

Retention & Platform Integrity

Centralised Subscription Control.

We made it simple for users to handle all their subscriptions in one spot. By centralizing tasks like viewing, managing, and changing different subscription options (Active, Suspended, Expired), we reduce complexity, save administrative time, and enhance user control.

Account and User Management.

Our approach created a centralised platform that seamlessly integrates user management, billing accounts, and payment methods. This allows companies to invite, activate, and deactivate users while managing multiple billing accounts, a critical feature for boosting the overall retention rate.

Mobile View & Final Outcome

Optimising Complex Configuration for Responsiveness.

While the design process began with desktop complexity, we successfully delivered a fully responsive platform to support Enterprise users across all touch points. We focused heavily on adapting the most critical workflows specifically the Subscription Configuration and Checkout Summary to ensure pricing transparency and complex data input were maintained without introducing friction on smaller screens.

This guarantees a seamless and efficient user experience whether the planner is at their desk or accessing the platform on a mobile device.

Strategic Impact & Key Takeaways

Reflection on the project

Cross-Functional Commercial Alignment

Successfully aligned design solutions with complex business goals and technical requirements (Zuora, Salesforce), directly enabling the measurable 15% increase in order value.

Feasibility and Constraint Mastery

Demonstrated the value of iterative design by working closely with technical consultants to ensure solutions aligned with Zuora logic and framework feasibility, delivering safe and reliable products.

Actionable Strategy & Validation

While formal testing was restricted by project timeline, this experience reinforced the critical need for validated design. I now actively integrate power user validation or A/B testing into all subsequent project roadmaps.

Testimonials

Working with Thilini was key to the success of our project. She helped us to improve the design of our B2B SaaS platform and offered a cutting-edge experience to ABB customers.

Antonio Moreno Brenes

Product Specialist - ABB E-Commerce Marketplace, Switzerland

This is unbelievable. After using Testiminial Generator my buisness skyrocketed!

Jennifer Musk

Project Manager@ Microsoft

Driving a 15% Order Value Increase by Simplifying Complex B2B Subscription Configuration.