Mobile workforce

Designs for an enterprise platform to help businesses manage a mobile workforce.

Brief

Design a Saas product for mobile workforce management.

Enabling the customer to build smart forms, construct and allocate tasks, design and run workflows, while also catering for mobile device consumption of content and completion of tasks and jobs.

Tools: Axure, Photoshop, Lucidchart, Research, Stickynotes, Jira, Aha!, Confluence

Project: >1 year (Research + design + test + build)

Objectives

  1. Build the ‘Lego blocks’ in a systematic way so they fit together with ease for customers.

  2. Allow the customer’s content to be the hero.
    Withdraw controls and navigation out of the way to fully display data, lists and graphics for the user.

  3. Uncluttered responsive design with simple and discoverable user options.

  4. Provide selection options, sidebar content and drag-and-drop mechanisms to minimise impact to the forms and dashboards, particularly on mobile devices.

  5. Supply familiar ‘builder’ modules that allow construction/customisation of dashboards, forms, rules and workflows.

My role

Roadmap grooming
UX research
UX design: Personas, Journey maps, Wireframes, Prototypes
UX testing
Client discovery
Client solution design

Approach

I developed concept designs which were then socialised with heads of architecture, front & back end development and head of product for feasibility.

  1. Feature components and screens that address user flows.

  2. Description of key objects involved, their properties, behaviour and relationships.

  3. UI designs and interactions for dashboards, forms and workflows and all their components.

  4. UI designs for no-code builders and the interconnectivity to the customer portal.

Research

  1. Competitor analysis

  2. Existing system knowledge

  3. Client contextual interviews

  4. Expert UX principles review

Ideation

Wireframe

Prototype and iterations

Difficulties

  1. Balancing the longer development time to produce good looking design vs the speed to market required to satisfy waiting customers.

  2. Enabling advanced functions for customers ahead of mature UI development.

  3. Mobile tool tip position and display mechanism.

  4. Anticipating how to allow and guide customers to build their system (particularly form construction) and still maintain a good user experience.

  5. Letting the user know there is new information relevant to, or allocated to them.

How difficulties addressed

  1. React native components (less attractive than our Hifi prototype) were used where necessary for the MVP - not aesthetically slick to start with, but got it out of the shop.

  2. Again, to satisfy speed to market requirements, some back-office components were run directly using JSON & APIs. Later, a purpose built web portal ran these functions so less technically inclined users could drive.

  3. A variety of mobile tool-tip solutions were prototyped and tested; icon type and location, information display in-line, modal/light-box, side panel.

  4. It was a constant balancing act allowing potential users to build custom forms and workflows while trying to prevent them from creating a monstrosity that would reflect badly on our product. A compromise was required that allowed the user some freedoms, but provided easily discoverable UX education during their construction process.