MD Calibration is a company in the logistics industry that run calibration tests on faulty equipment. They are responsible for the solicitation and approval of equipment for the purpose of verifying its fit for use. In this project my services were engaged to develop a blue print schematic of the project for the purpose of improving accuracy in the quotations and planning before the engagement of developers.
The main issue of their business was an absence of functionality to digitize their procurement process and to increase their operation efficiency through the usage of some sort of logistics backend CRM and CMS. A big part of the project revolved around familiarising myself with the industry work flows of the business. The project was very heavy UX based and there was a lot of back and forth sessions with the product owner to better understand the objectives and requirements.
THE UIUX BRIEF
The brief of this project revolved around identifying weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the workflow process of the business and finding creative UX solutions to solve the mountain of dynamic data that was running through the platform.
The main UIUX of the project was focused on digitising the old office documents and designing tools that could aid in the creation of new ones.
DESIGN CHALLENGES
Digitising traditional invoices and form related documents
Worksheet blocks
Overall better lifestyle features
Heavy Documentation
My role
Lead UIUX Designer
Project timeline
3-5 months ( Excluding Development time )
Had many discussions with the product owner to create the foundation information architecture of the project.
After understanding the business flow I began creating personas of the different levels of access and their respective user journeys.
Drawing wireframes was not enough to communicate the ideas I had with the product owner. I started employing low fidelity prototypes to simulate solutions for the complex UX problems
Although not as important as UX we started laying out look and feel of the UI elements base of a new branding guideline I created from different ideas of the web.
I felt that a high fidelity prototype was required in this project to navigate the overwhelming flow of information so that developers could have a means of better understanding the overall picture of information to facilitate their planning of software architecture.
Because of the scale of the project. I created design systems for all the components that were constantly reused in the project. I included all the source zeplin links and labelled them according to the sitemaps for easy reference.
Drip feed access
Persona type:
Admin ( Business Owner)
Persona type:
Lab Technician
Persona type:
Customer
User Journey Admin ( Business Owner)
A breakdown of the different actions and navigation for the Business Owner.
User Journey Lab Technician
A breakdown of the different actions and navigation for the Lab Technician.
User Journey Different Roles
Different Roles using the software
I layout the information architecture by categories. The purpose is to provide developers with a base model map to consider the software architecture of API points and where to fetch and pull data. It is by no means a means to and end. A lot of this ended up getting changed during development but providing developers with this information early helps prevent future pitfalls and greatly speeds up the development time.
Time Tracking Main Page
Time tracker is the screen which captures all the daily progress tasks. It is my concept of having a birds eye view of the company. You can dive into the process flow by selecting any of the cards in the timeline. The colour bar represents if a task is completed, stuck or rejected.
Sub tab system for main categories
To contain the overwhelming amount of information users can navigate to sub related fields via the tab cards. Also testing the use of date breadcrumbs.
E-Signature send off
Important documents need to be verified and approved by manager level officers. This is a demo prototype to reference the functionality to developers.
Modal Alerts
Visual feedback for action tasks to user.
Below are the final production wireframes for the project. (In some projects I cannot showcase all of them due to confidentiality issue).
Overall the project was very challenging, it took a lot of extra hands to complete. It forced me to step outside my comfort zone in terms of learning a completely different industries terminology and process. It was very UX heavy which I enjoyed. The project taught me the value of communication and critical thinking as I challenged myself to find unique ways to battle problems with UX solutions that otherwise would have cost the business owner a lot more money if they employed a technical solution. Through constant development a lot of the times we were able to discover that some features that they initially thought they wanted would end up being overkill for the development and budget.
Key takeaways
Allocating time for UIUX research and prototyping at the beginning can appear to most business owners as a luxury however this project has shown me that a lot of start-ups fail to see the immense impact it has on efficiency and communication of the end product. If more companies and startups choose to start every project allocating a respectable time for prototyping and research they will be able to save a lot of costs and development time.