RunMyProcess - Easy Builder
Easy Builder was a strategic product initiative designed to democratize application development within RunMyProcess, a low-code enterprise workflow automation platform. The product solved a critical business problem: presales teams spent weeks manually coding prototypes to demonstrate business solutions to enterprise clients. Easy Builder eliminated this bottleneck by enabling non-technical business analysts and presales professionals to build functional applications in hours using a visual, drag-and-drop interface.
Role
Product Owner & Sr. Frontend Developer
Year
2012 - 2017
Duration
jQuery, React, CSS
Problem: Presales teams couldn't rapidly prototype enterprise applications without developer involvement, losing competitive speed-to-market advantages in sales cycles.
Context & Business Challenge
The Market Opportunity
RunMyProcess served enterprise clients across multiple industries, providing a sophisticated workflow automation platform (DigitalSuite Studio). However, the platform's power came with complexity—learning the full system required weeks of training, limiting its use to dedicated developers.
The company's presales team faced a recurring problem: when pitching to potential clients, they needed to demonstrate that RunMyProcess could solve specific business problems. Building these prototypes required deep technical expertise and weeks of development, making it difficult to iterate on solutions during active sales cycles.
The Strategic Vision
Easy Builder was conceived as a "fast-path" solution: a simplified environment that would let business-oriented professionals (non-programmers) rapidly assemble working applications. This would:
- Accelerate sales cycles by enabling same-day prototyping during client meetings
- Empower presales teams to own the prototype creation process independently
- Expand the addressable market by reaching business users who couldn't master the full platform
- Generate competitive differentiation against other low-code platforms through ease-of-use
Discovery & User Research
🔍 Research Methodology
I began by conducting formal user research to understand our target users and their needs:
- Stakeholder interviews with presales leaders, account executives, and technical consultants
- Contextual inquiry sessions observing how presales teams currently built prototypes (manual coding, copy-paste patterns)
- Competitive analysis of other low-code platforms (Mendix, OutSystems, Microsoft Power Apps) to understand interaction patterns and UX conventions
- Task analysis mapping the most common application types presales built and their component requirements
💡 Key Findings
Research revealed critical insights that shaped design decisions:
- Users weren't programmers:They thought in terms of "forms" and "workflows," not code objects. Design had to abstract technical complexity.
- Speed was paramount: Presales teams estimated they could allocate 2–4 hours to build a prototype. Any friction would push them back to custom coding.
- Visual design mattered Prototypes had to look polished enough to impress clients, not like development tools.
- Mental model mismatch: Users wanted to think about the "happy path" first; edge cases and validation rules came secondary.
Design Process
Phase 1: Wireframing & Information Architecture
Based on research findings, I created wireframes that mapped the conceptual model users held: a two-pane interface separating "what users see" (web interface) from "what happens next" (workflow). This reflected how presales teams naturally thought about applications.
Phase 2: Design System & Component Library
Rather than designing screens in isolation, I established a design system with reusable components that reflected Easy Builder's conceptual model:
- Widget library: Pre-built form elements (text input, dropdown, date picker, file upload, etc.) users could drag onto the canvas
- Workflow steps: Pre-built process elements (form, validation, email) users could sequence in order
- Configuration panels: Consistent interface for configuring any element (properties pane, visibility toggles, etc.)
- Visual feedback: Clear indication of selected elements, drag-and-drop feedback, and validation states
Phase 3: User Testing & Iteration
I conducted iterative user testing sessions with actual presales professionals to validate design assumptions:
- Task-based testing: "Build a simple expense approval workflow" using wireframe mockups and prototypes
- Observation focus: Where did users hesitate? What was intuitive? Where did the mental model break?
- Iteration cycles: Each round of feedback led to refinements in layout, terminology, and interaction patterns
- Validation: Testing confirmed that the two-pane conceptual model matched user mental models, justifying the architecture
Key Design Decision: Simplicity Through Constraint
Rather than trying to expose all of DigitalSuite Studio's capabilities, Easy Builder deliberately constrained functionality to the 20% most frequently used. This focused interface made the tool intuitive for new users while keeping development scope manageable.
Core Features & Capabilities
Web Interface Designer
A visual form builder enabling drag-and-drop composition of data collection interfaces:
- Widget library 10+ pre-built form elements (text, number, date, email, dropdown, radio buttons, checkboxes, tables, file upload, user picker)
- Property configuration: Each widget had configurable properties (labels, default values, validation rules, visibility toggles)
- Multi-form design: Support for multi-step workflows with different form configurations at each step
- Live preview Real-time preview showing how forms would appear to end users
Workflow Designer
A visual workflow orchestration interface enabling users to define multi-step business processes:
- Process steps Drag-and-drop composition of workflow steps (launch form, validation forms, email notifications)
- Task assignment: Assign validation tasks to specific users or roles
- Notifications: Configure email notifications with templated content and dynamic variables
- Decision logic: Support for reject/resubmit flows with custom messaging
Test & Deploy Lifecycle
A three-environment deployment model enabling careful validation before production release:
- Test mode Drag-and-drop composition of workflow steps (launch form, validation forms, email notifications)
- Acceptance testing: Stakeholders could review applications with actual routing and notifications before production
- Production deployment: One-click publishing to end-user environments with version control
Reporting & Analytics
Built-in visibility into application usage and performance:
- Request volume tracking and status visualizations
- Data export for process improvement and compliance
- Custom filtering to analyze specific process flows
Impact & Outcomes
Business Impact
Easy Builder significantly improved RunMyProcess's competitive positioning and business results:
75%
Reduction in prototype development time
50+
Applications built by presales teams
50%
Increase in presales efficiency
4 weeks
Average sales cycle acceleration
Product Market Fit
- Presales adoption: Over 100 applications were built by presales professionals within the first 18 months of launch
- Customer expansion: Enabled enterprise customers to build their own applications, expanding use of the broader RunMyProcess platform
- Market differentiation: Easy Builder became a key differentiator versus competitors like Mendix and OutSystems
- Press recognition: Featured in industry publications as an example of effective no-code design
Technical Impact
- Established React as the standard frontend framework for RunMyProcess products
- Created reusable component patterns adopted by other product teams
- Demonstrated the value of user-centered design in product development
- Built deployment pipeline enabling one-click publishing
- Established documentation standards (including comprehensive product documentation I authored)
Team Leadership
- Led product strategy as certified Scrum Product Owner
- Collaborated with UX designers, backend engineers, and QA team
- Gathered requirements from 10+ enterprise stakeholders
- Facilitated user testing sessions validating design decisions
Key Learnings & Reflections
Design Insights
- Designing for Non-Technical Users Requires Deep User Research
- Presales professionals had mental models shaped by their domain (business processes), not software engineering
- My initial instincts about what would be intuitive proved wrong in several cases
- Investing time in user research, wireframing validation, and iterative testing prevented building the wrong thing.
- By deliberately constraining functionality to the 20% of features that solved 80% of use cases, the interface remained intuitive while development stayed focused
Product Development Insights
- User testing with real professionals is invaluable: Testing with presales teams revealed insights that wouldn't have emerged from generic user feedback.
- Documentation is product design: The comprehensive documentation I authored became part of the product experience, helping users understand system capabilities and best practices.
- No-code doesn't mean simplified development: Building Easy Builder required sophisticated engineering. The complexity just shifted from the user interface to the underlying platform.
Organizational Impact
- Demonstrated the business value of user-centered design to engineering-driven organization
- Established design discipline and process despite absence of formal UX team
- Created reusable patterns and component architecture other teams could build on
- Improved product quality and user satisfaction through structured design process