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David Service(current)
UX Product Strategist & Design Team Leader
Research & Discovery:
Challenges Faced:
- Limited Understanding of UX Design was a challenge due to entrenched approaches.
- Limited Time & Resources were constant pressures with most projects already being underway.
- Differing Project Scope & Needs for solutions that were at different points in the production cycle.
What We Learned (Pains & Priorities):
- Flexible Approaches were Key for introducing UX value into existing processes.
- Trust Needed to be Established by introducing UX value to projects that were already underway using more traditional approaches.
High-Level Goals (OKRs):
- Building Trust through Contribution to establish a series of “small wins” for initial design maturity.
- Establish Co-operative Best-Practices to maximize design impact for new solutions being developed.
- Increase Internal Efficiencies through low-cost, high-impact research and redesign initiatives.
Introducing Low-Cost, High-Significance Value with Heuristic Analysis & Affinity Mapping - We used these techniques to identify challenges and pain-points that users were having with existing products, and then used the results to quickly create an optimization roadmap.
Finding Signal in the Noise via a UX Analytics Strategy - As part of a large intranet redesign effort, I introduced key stakeholders to a UX Analytics Strategy to identify data-backed opportunities for improvement that could be acted upon quickly for maximized returns. This created a series of “small wins” for busy product teams, and built further trust in the capabilities of the UX Team.
Design for SaaS & Apps:
What We Learned (Insights & Actions Taken):
- Requirements were Varied & Complex to meet the needs of both internal and external-facing solutions.
- Early & In-Depth Collaboration was Key to ensure that we designed solutions that met with all industry regulatory standards and industry best-practices.
- Users’ Time was Scarce in a fast-paced legal environment, so adaptive UX approaches were critical.
Value Generated (KPIs):
- Product Value was Increased through the inclusion of guerrilla style usability-testing sessions, with brief user interviews where possible, to expand upon and refine requirements without slowing product teams down.
- Development Efforts were Streamlined with initial wireframe sketches to explore feasible implementation of design, with refined prototypes following quickly for hand-off.
Taming Enterprise-Level Complexity with Wireframes & Mock-Ups (Web App) - Pencil and paper wireframes were used to quickly flesh out rough ideas, and these concepts were later refined in Sketch so that they could be presented to stakeholders for essential feedback.
Establishing Multi-Platform Functionality with Wireframes & Mock-Ups (Mobile App) - Given the particular constraints of working with native phone apps in multiple environments (i.e. Android & iOS), rough sketches and refined wireframes were produced so that we could work out how to approach the needed content/functionality in each context.
Maintaining Design Consistency through a Universal Style Guide - To ensure brand and user-interface consistency across digital products, the UX team assembled and refined a universal style guide to provide clarity and reduce development time.
Increasing Engagement with Content Strategy & Email Design - A content strategy was designed and implemented to produce an ongoing company-wide employee up-skilling campaign which drastically raised awareness and participation with available online training.
Testing & Optimization:
What We Learned (Feedback & Priorities):
- Users were Busy but Enthusiastic to participate in efforts to improve the tools they relied upon, and had come to accept the limitations of as a “cost of doing business”.
- Design Maturity was Desirable by product teams across the organization for the accompanying benefits better solutions with less effort.
Value Generated (KPIs):
- Increased User Efficiency through streamlined workflow designs for both new and existing products.
- Reduced Development Costs through a drastic reduction in rework needed from developers.
- Lessened Production Times through rapid iteration, lightweight usability-testing, and product refinement.
Usability-Testing and Stakeholder Updates through High-Fidelity Prototypes - The team took advantage of both web-based and Axure RP-based prototypes during usability-testing and design iterations, which allowed us to quickly explore different functionalities in a technically feasible way.
A Streamlined Experience through Usability-Testing & Stakeholder Engagement - Our usability-testing helped us to validate our designs, while also providing specific targets for improvement in the next rapid design cycle. This allowed to to rapidly iterate through various versions of a product, keep stakeholders informed and delivering needed feedback, and introduce rapid continuous improvement.
© 2016 David Service
Version 3.2.0