01. SUMMARY
The Challenge
The client, a life sciences company, relied on a legacy application to manage their assets, including medical equipment, and facilities. The application was built on obsolete technology, leading to performance issues, high maintenance costs, and poor user experience.
The Solution
Migrating the application to a cloud-based infrastructure with a modern architecture for scalability and performance along with an efficient user interface that meets the needs of different user groups (e.g., administrators, field technicians, managers).
The Results
• Increased efficiency by 100% by optimizing the technicians workflow and eliminating the step of writing down on paper then going back and adding to HTMS when they get home
• Increased technician accountability and accuracy of reports by 35% by requiring exact time spent input into the mobile app onsite vs relying on their memory when they return home
• Increased technician satisfaction by 25% by improving the UX and enabling mobile workflows
02. PROJECT DETAILS
Context
This project is protected by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
The Client
A leading provider of Healthcare and Life Sciences Asset Management Solutions with services including biomedical and imaging services, capital equipment planning/lifecycle management and cybersecurity solutions.
My Role
Design Lead, Research Lead
Key Deliverables
User Research
Wireframes
Information Architecture
Prototypes
Design System Implementation
Alpha Release
Timeline
8 months
Project Overview
03. DISCOVERY
Understanding the Ask
An initial West Monroe engagement team conducted an extensive discovery phase of the client’s current problem space and recommended a dedicated mobile app as the best solution. The client opted not to pursue the development of a mobile app, citing limited resources for maintaining dual code bases.
Research
As part of a two-week discovery phase, I conducted in-depth interviews with the client SME to understand roles and responsibilities, from managing equipment service status and ordering parts to fielding service calls, in order to identify additional pain points.
Pain Points
• The Field Technician is responsible for preventative, scheduled and emergency equipment maintenance; often on site without access to a laptop.
• Field technicians complete all their data entry tasks at the end of the day or the following day due to the high number of form fields that need to be completed.
• Field technicians spend a significant amount of time each week manually checking for errors from their own notes due to missing information.
Card Sorting
The team conducted a card sorting exercise on the current UI to guide the application redesign. Analyzing the results revealed user preferences and patterns, which informed the development of a more intuitive and efficient information architecture, streamlining functionality and increasing overall efficiency.
Opportunities
• Optimized Mobile Interface: Create a more intuitive, user-friendly web responsive interface that allows field technicians to perform data entry tasks in real-time.
• Streamlined Forms and Inputs: Simplify forms and input fields for use on smaller screens to improve usability.
• Minimize Unnecessary Steps: Remove any unnecessary or redundant steps in the data entry process to enhance efficiency.
04. DEFINE
Problem Statement
How might we alleviate errors and save the company (and field technician’s) time during data entry of service events?
Hypothesis
We believe that designing a streamlined responsive web experience will better address the field technicians needs by decreasing errors and significantly saving the company approximately 10 hours of labor every other week in transcription efforts.
Feature Prioritization
Once the feature sets were determined, the next step was to create a roadmap outlining how we would achieve success based on total available capacity and scope. This roadmap prioritized tasks to ensure efficient progress and successful project completion.
Testing
We validated our design by conducting three group interviews with a cross-section of company personas to ensure it met the target audience's needs. The design concepts received very positive feedback from participants. Our key metric of making information easy to understand, enabling users to make informed decisions, was successfully achieved.
05. DESIGN
Due to timeline concerns, the team decided to skip the ideation stage and move directly to high-fidelity designs. Decisions are informed by a strong understanding of customer needs and clearly defined business goals. Daily working sessions were needed to enable real-time collaboration, eliminating communication lag and allowing design, engineering, and investigation to happen simultaneously.
Design Decisions
The redesign of the digital masthead was regarded as a critical component aimed at consolidating all crucial information above the digital fold. The masthead contained all the data needed for field technicians to accomplish key tasks.
1. Display Tags - Feature that enables field technicians to efficiently prioritize and sort tasks by urgency and status.
2. Labels - Allow field technicians to quickly establish and identify device names by manufacturer, type and device, ensuring streamlined maintenance.
3. Inventory ID - Allows field technicians to easily locate and identify devices within the a a facility inventory, enhancing tracking.
4. Device ID - Provides field technicians with essential information to locate and access a device on a network, ensuring efficient software troubleshooting and management.
5. Location - This feature equips field technicians with information to locate a device within a facility, facilitating efficient on-site maintenance and repairs.
06. DELIVERY
Mobile
For mobile, I handed off ADA-compliant specifications to the engineering team.
Desktop
For desktop, I handed off ADA-compliant specifications for the mobile web to the engineering team.
What I Learned
Collaboration Across Disciplines is key when designing for deeply complex enterprise software. This project often involves deep collaboration with biomedical techs, imaging specialists and business analysts.
Engineering and design co-creation accelerated iteration by fostering shared understanding and respect, allowing for efficient problem-solving without the need for designs at every change, resulting in a cohesive and impactful digital solution.
Testimonial
“You guys hit it out of the park with this one!”
-Client Field Technician