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Global Placeholder Management UX Framework

Project Timeline

2.5 Months

Client

Adobe

Role & Contribution

Led the end-to-end design process, including user research, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing to refine the product based on user needs. Collaborated closely with stakeholders to ensure a seamless and user-centric experience.

Project Overview

The current placeholder management system involves a highly manual workflow where authors maintain locale-specific content using Excel sheets and SharePoint folders more than 40,000+ key and Value. This project aims to automate and streamline the process, ensuring seamless placeholder creation, modification, and management across multiple locales while reducing errors and improving efficiency.

Problem Statement

Manual Workload: Authors maintain locale-specific placeholders in Excel sheets, leading to inefficiency.
No Centralized System: Each locale has a separate folder in SharePoint, making collaboration and access difficult.
Lack of Automation: Placeholder creation, editing, filtering and deletion require repetitive manual steps.
Limited Visibility: Tracking placeholder changes and global/local modifications is very difficult.

The lack of an efficient system increases operational overhead, slows down content updates, and risks translation errors that affect user experience. A more structured, automated, and intuitive solution is needed to streamline placeholder management, ensure consistency across locales, and provide authors with clear guidance on modification rules and access levels.

Key Areas of Focus in Crafting the Product

User Research & Insights – Analyzed existing workflows, pain points, and inefficiencies in placeholder management.

Information Architecture – Designed a structured system for organizing placeholders across locales.

Access Level Management – Defined role-based permissions for creating, editing, and deleting placeholders.

Placeholder Status & Version Control – Established rules for Default, Custom Default, Custom Master Default, and Locale-Specific placeholders.

Workflow Automation – Replaced manual Excel-based processes with a centralized system.

Editing & Modification Rules – Created clear guidelines for when and how placeholders can be modified.

Localization & Translation Management – Developed workflows for auto-translation with manual override capabilities.

Revert & Recovery Workflow – Enabled authors to revert placeholders back to their default state.

Global & Regional Placeholder Handling – Designed flexible options for managing placeholders across multiple locales.

User Experience & UI Simplification – Ensured intuitive navigation, clarity in statuses, and seamless content updates.

Success Measuring

Efficiency Gains

80% reduction in manual work - Eliminated Excel-based workflows and SharePoint folder tracking.
2x faster placeholder management - Centralized system streamlined global content updates.
50% reduction in errors – Automated translations with manual override minimized localization mistakes.

Accuracy & Consistency

100% version control – Authors can now track and revert changes between Default, Custom Default, and Custom Master Default.
Reduced translation inconsistencies – Clear distinction between auto-translated, manually modified, and locale-specific placeholders.
Higher localization accuracy – Authors now have structured workflows to override machine translations when needed.

User Experience Improvements

Simplified UI with role based access – Reduced confusion on editing permissions and modification rules.
Clearer placeholder statuses – Authors now instantly understand what can be modified and where.
Seamless cross-locale management – Faster global updates with one-click actions for region-specific changes.

Design Process

User Persona

Alex's roles and responsibilities

Alex is a localisation specialist responsible for managing content placeholders across multiple regions. She ensures that translated content is accurate, aligned with brand guidelines, and available in the correct locales. Sarah collaborates with content creators, translators, and developers to maintain consistency across all platforms.

Goals & Motivations

Ensure content consistency across different languages and regions.
Reduce manual effort in managing placeholders.
Improve efficiency by using an automated system.
Have a centralized platform for placeholder modifications and updates.
Ensure seamless translation workflows without errors.

Pain Points & Challenges

Manual Workflow: Sarah spends hours updating Excel sheets and SharePoint folders.
Error-Prone Translations: Manually handling multiple placeholders leads to mistakes.
Lack of Automation: No bulk editing or auto-translation support.
Limited Visibility: Hard to track who made changes and when.
Collaboration Issues: Multiple teams work in silos, leading to inconsistencies.

Needs & Expectations

Automation for creating, modifying, and deleting placeholders.
Real-time tracking of placeholder changes.
Bulk operations to handle multiple locales at once.
Role-based access to control who can modify what.
Seamless translation management for different locales.

User Research & Requirement Gathering

User's Quote:
"Managing placeholders manually is exhausting! I need a system that automates this process and ensures accuracy across all locales."

Empathy Mapping

Primary Experience Flow Summary

Creating a New Placeholder

Clicks "Create New Placeholder" → Enters Key → Chooses where to create it

Use Case 1: Create Across Globe

Placeholder is created globally across all locales.
Do Not Translate option available → Keeps original English value.
If unchecked, it gets translated per locale

Use Case 2: Create Locale-Specific

User selects a single locale (e.g., Germany).
Only available for that locale, not linked to the USA Default.

Use Case 3: Create for Specific Regions

User selects multiple locales to create the placeholder.
"Do Not Translate" option available → Uses entered value instead of translation.

Editing a Placeholder

User Action: Click an existing placeholder to modify its value

Default Placeholder (Auto-Translated)

When edited, the placeholder status changes from Default to Custom Default.
Revert Option: Authors can restore the original Default version if needed.

Custom Default

Users can modify custom translations within their locale.
Revert Option: Changes can be reverted to the original Default version.

Master Default (USA Default)

Editing for USA only changes the status from Master Default to Custom Master Default.
Editing for all locales updates translations globally.
Revert Option: Custom Master Default can be restored to the original Master Default.

Locale-Specific Placeholder

Modifications affect only the specific locale.
No revert option available since this is a locale-specific placeholder

Types of Placeholders & Their Reasons

Master Default (USA Default)

The original placeholder created in USA English.

Reason: This serves as the source for all global translations and is copied across all locales.
Example:
- Key: welcome_message
- Value (USA English): "Welcome to Adobe!"

Default Placeholder (Auto-Translated)

A placeholder automatically translated into different locales when the Master Default is created.

Reason: Ensures global consistency by keeping the same key across all languages while adjusting the value for localization.
Example (Germany - Default Placeholder):
- Key: welcome_message
- Value (Auto-Translated): "Willkommen bei Adobe!"

Custom Default (Manually Modified Default)

A modified version of a Default Placeholder when an author updates the value in a specific locale.

Reason: Allows regional teams to refine auto-translations or adjust messaging based on local cultural nuances.
Example (Germany - Custom Default):
- Key: welcome_message
- Value (Modified by the Author): "Herzlich Willkommen zu Adobe!"

Custom Master Default (USA-Specific Modification)

When an author modifies the USA Default but only for the USA, instead of affecting the global copies.

Reason: If the USA team wants to update messaging only for the USA without triggering changes across all locales.
Example (USA - Custom Master Default):
- Key: welcome_message
- Value (Updated for USA only): "Welcome to Adobe's Creative World!"

Locale-Specific Placeholder

A new placeholder created only for a specific locale, not linked to the USA Master Default.

Reason: When a region needs a unique placeholder that is not applicable globally.
Example (Japan - Locale-Specific Placeholder):
- Key: festival_greeting
- Value (Japan Only): "新年あけましておめでとうございます！"