Overview
Summary
Rapidly explored, designed, and aided in testing of business critical app.
Role
Product Designer
Impact
App deployed before due date.
Enabled nationwide rollout of system.
Building a new tool
Overview
The business was about to undertake the largest project in its history. Rolling out a Building Management System to 350+ UK sites. Two weeks from the start date I was asked to design and assist in delivery of a tool for engineers to document a site install through photos.
Design enviroment
I joined the business after a period of rapid growth, evolving from a small start up into a medium size operation. There had been no design process during this growth, so there was not appreciation for it’s value. Requirements and deliverables were simply dictated. Despite these restrictions, I was determined to demonstrate the value of the design process. By earning trust and freedom for design, I could help build better, more valuable products in the future.
Objective
In two weeks, design, develop, and deploy an app that enables an installer engineer to document the installation process at a site.
Initial product
The business has an existing product that possesses functionality close to what would be needed. Originally built to document a single job against one single asset, it lacks the ability to manage many jobs against many assets.
Discovery
The business acknowledged the current product was a poor experience, but was unwilling to allow testing with end users. I would have to resolve the existing usability issues through best practices, and rely on team members feedback to substitute testing.
I started by running workshops with technical leads, head of operations, and support staff to map out what the required outputs and desired order of operations had to be.
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Discussing policy enabled me to identify requirements that would have otherwise gone undiscovered during the process creation.
Design
I started with basic wire-frames, to visualize the process a user would move through to complete a single loop of attaching an image.
Developer resources were limited, especially for front end development. Due to this I was limited on how complex interactions that communicate progression could be. I adapted by only using colour fills and outlines to indicate progress and simple style tweaks.
As there was no access to the end users, I used my team members as proxies. I was able to test the navigation and order of operations. However, without an understanding of the work environment, or the engineers process, I did not have the research confidence to implement any automation.
Developing
Once a viable journey had been designed I created UI documentation for the developers. I held regular catch ups to identify and resolve issues as they appeared. This was valuable when I discovered too much time was being invested in developing a carousel function for attached images. I decided we should not continue with that functionality as it was extremely unlikely to have more than three images per stage.
Implementation
The program was delivered on time for the nationwide roll-out across the country.
There were no issues with usability, but with the process being flexible enough to accommodate any journey to complete a site, we discovered a number of users uploading inaccurate images. There are also complaints that the additional workload of documentation is extending already tight turnaround times.
I continue to work closely with project managers to identify issues and improvement opportunities both within the app, and adjacent operations on which it impacts.