Work

Marketing Automation, built on Service now

Client

Tenon

Role

Discovery & research, strategy, product design, design systems

tenonhq.com

About Tenon

Founded in 2022, Tenon began as a Marketing Project Management tool built natively on the ServiceNow platform. In 2024, Tenon pivoted. As ServiceNow launched their full CRM capabilities, it was clear there was a gap we could fill: marketing automation.

The Challenge

With the sudden pivot came a big challenge: deliver a fully-featured, enterprise-level marketing automation platform in just 8 months. Automation is complicated, and you can get lost in the sauce thinking through everything at once. So, we started with two foundational focus points:

My Role

The user experience and interface were key aspects in building Tenon's marketing automation platform. While nearly every other "Built on ServiceNow" product was made for IT professionals, Tenon is for the marketer, and marketers place a heavy importance on design.

As Head of Product Design, I spearheaded the design of the entire automation product, including:

Design system
Information architecture
UX patterns
Workflows
and more

Throughout the discovery, testing, and delivery phases, I had the privilege of collaborating with a talented team of Product Managers, Product Designers, Engineers, and Product Marketers. I played a critical role shaping our product process - research practices, requirements gathering, cross-collaboration & communication, testing, and execution.

A significant part of my responsibilities as a design leader involved consistent communication with key stakeholders and developers. This included multiple design reviews with front-end and back-end engineers, as well as seeking feedback from across to whole Tenon team. My goal was not only to prioritize delight and ease of use but also to balance trade-offs effectively, aligning the needs of the business with the goals of our team.

Competitive Research

A good designer knows when to use common patterns and when to create a new experience. Using familiar patterns can be helpful to guide users when they experience our product for the first time. Knowing where to find key actions, using standardized terminology, and structuring content in a way that is familiar to consume gives them the feeling of control and safety to navigate with confidence.

That's why we placed such an importance on understanding our competitors and the patterns they had already defined.

User Interviews

Discovery interviews and user testing were conducted at every step of the process. The biggest lesson - not all marketers work the same.

Some prefer a linear path: create a template > create email and select the template > finalize email.
Some prefer to start on second base: duplicate a previous email > update > finalize email.

It was clear that we had to solve for type A's and type B's.

The Solution

Based on the insights gathered, several key focus areas emerged.

Audience segmentation

Enable marketers to build specific groups based on characteristics, behaviors, or needs. These audiences become the bedrock for tailored messages and actions.

Automated Journeys

Create workflows triggered by specific user behaviors or conditions, allowing marketers to send the right message to the right person at the right time, without manual effort.