Reducing time-to-resolution by 30% for admins through consistent workflows
The existing experience allowed admins to approve applications from a creator's profile, but it didn't account for the broader review lifecycle the business needed to support. I evaluidated the existing workflows against launch requirements, identified missing capabilities, and worked with stakeholders to translate those gaps into a more complete review experience. The result was a structured review system supporting three administrative roles, 14 permissions and three exception workflows.
What started as a backoffice cleanup evolved into a broader effort to establish the workflows, information architecture and permissions needed to support a complete creator review lifecycle. I worked on evolving the existing backoffice into a more complete review system by consolidating application information, designing workflows for exception, and translating business-defined roles into a permission model across the platform.
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
3 Months
Outcome
↓ time-to-resolution by 30%
↓ average creator onboarding time by 30%
4 streamlined workflows
Context
The backoffice didn't support the complete review lifecycle the business needed.
Fanspark's existing backoffice supported general platform operations like account management, content management and reporting. The backoffice allowed admins to approve applications from a creator's profile, but it didn't account for the broader review lifecycle the business needed to support.
The people reviewing applications were the founding team, who were also running the company atop of their other responsibilities. Review time competed with every other responsibility they had, so each minute spent in the tool had a real cost. At the same time, the 72-hour rule existed to keep creators informed and trust the platform, so missing it wasn't an option.
The Challenge
What started as a request to clean up the existing back office and introduce additional review capabilities revealed a deeper problem: the system lacked the foundations to support a complete creator review lifecycle.
Reviews were limited to a single-button action, leaving administrators without structured workflows for handling different outcomes and exceptions. The existing information architecture also wasn't designed to accommodate additional review complexity or differentiated administrative responsibilities. Introducing these capabilities without restructuring the experience risked adding more complexity and clutter to an already fragmented workflow.
The challenge was to move beyond incremental improvements and establish a more structured review system that could support different scenarios, administrative responsibilities, and levels of decision-making authority.
Problem
When an application couldn't be approved, there was no process to move forward.
New creator verification reviews were limited to a single-button action, leaving administrators without structured workflows for handling different outcomes and exceptions. This limited functionality cause reviews to sit in the queue.
"Approval" was the only action. The "Request change" button was never implemented on the backend.
Problem
The existing backoffice lack the structure to support a complete, scalable creator review lifecycle.
Admins worked across multiple tabs and screens to resolve a single issue. When an application was processed, admins couldn't see who made the decision and why it had been made. All admins had access to every workflow, action and data point. These gaps created risk, from slower resolution times to no reliable record for audit.
As I reviewed existing workflows and business requirements, I identified several gaps:
Applications sat in the queue
Applications sat in the queue with no way to move forward
Context was scattered
Critical information was scattered across multiple views
No ownership
The system recorded that a decision was made, not who made it
Challenge
Create a complete review lifecycle that could support different decisions, responsibilities and level of access.
Admins worked across multiple tabs and screens to resolve a single issue. When an application was processed, admins couldn't see who made the decision and why it had been made. All admins had access to every workflow, action and data point. These gaps created risk, from slower resolution times to no reliable record for audit.
Design Decisions
Defining the review lifecyle
The new experience needed to support six review states and outcomes.
Key Design Decisions
Consolidating the review experience
Adminstrations had to navigate multiple pages to gather information and understand an application's status. The existing experience didn't provide a clear, centralized view of the review process
Designing a dedicated review experience
Admins needed context, not more information. The platform contained a lot of
Tradeoff
Since the people reviewing had limited time, keep all the information in one view mattered more.
Give admins visibility into previous decisions and reviewer activity
Added an activity history above the summary and action area, showing previous decisions, reviewers, timestamps, rationale and notes. This helped prevent back-and-forth between admins
Outcomes
A more structured review experience, designed to support operational scale
The new experience evolved from a basic approval experience into a more structure system for managing creator reviews.
↓ 30% time-to-resolution
Reduced context switching and manual data investigation
3 user roles
Operators, managers and admins
4 streamlined workflows
Consistent workflows to review and resolve issues