portfolio 2020 > encircle > moisture

Smarts

Equipment Warnings

How might we notify users their equipment is not working and allow them to take proactive measures to resolve the issues.

Overview

User Problem Statement

In moisture, there are a lot of things going on at the same time. I need a way to be alerted to dehumidifier readings that are out of wack.

User Persona

Unskilled field laborer working on moisture-based restoration jobs. High school grad most likely without much of a math and science background. More of a hands-on tactile user. Unlike their boss, has no moisture training or certifications.

Core UX Principle

Support the user but don't coddle them.

Product Design Details

Process & Storymaps

We were continually trying to improve our process. For this era of projects, instead of design project briefs I created storymaps to provide guardrails to the designer and a method to socialize what individual designers were working on.

Users Flows & Activity Chains

User flows for "Smarts" quickly turning into end-to-end workflows. As part of a larger initiative around bringing a notifications system to the Encircle platforms, these workflows became activity chains.

We defined activity chains as end-to-end workflows with 1 or 2 actors by which the primary interaction was via the notifications system. Rather than doing a deep-dive here, we are just going to look at some artifacts from the kickoff presentation.

Design Pieces

For simplicity, I'm going to share just a few design pieces.

To ask for help, the user needs to select a team member to send the request to. "Smarts" is the first workflow in Encircle to require this functionality. The named Product Designer created a new "People" screen to cover all the weird and wonderful scenarios our customers have implemented in their Encircle profiles.

Roles & Responsibilities

Product Designer

With this project, my Product Designer accelerated his learning. I'm delighted that he was able to raise the collective bar on a complicated end-to-end set of user flows. He's proven that he has world-class product design chops!

Iterative concept design.
Final production design. On this project Includes:

Interaction Design (Includes: Wireframing, Prototyping, Interaction Flow, Information Architecture).
User Interface Design (Includes: Microinteractions, Animations & Movement, Sound & Haptics).
Writing & Content (Includes: UX Writing, Voice & Tone).
Empathy (Understand and represent users' needs, motivations, behaviors and environments.)

Just enough specification and asset generation.
Driving the Developer kickoff meeting.
Available for developer questions.
Design QA.

Product Design Leader

As stated earlier, this project was part of a larger initiative to bring a notifications system to the Encircle platforms. As high-level UX architect, it was my responsibility to coordinate and orchestrate the three notifications projects to ensure the notifications model was usable and scalable.

Established the UX practices and processes for a successful and thriving user-centered design culture.
Set clear goals and metrics, shaped strategies and aligned the team on the right path to delivery and success.
Set and maintained a high bar for design craft that ensured a high standard for all product deliverables.
Guided the work of talented product designers by leading and facilitating design team critiques, discussions, sprints, etc., in a supportive environment.
Facilitated and collaborated on company and product strategy, as well as the product roadmap.
Identified, prioritized problems and major opportunities across the products and platforms and worked with cross-functional teams in developing solutions to address those problems.
Owned product design, user experience and information architecture across Encircle, ensuring a thoughtful, consistent UX that scales across all Encircle products (from free personal inventory product to the Claims and Inspection products used by restoration contractors and insurance companies alike) and platforms (desktop web, Android and iOS)
Acted as UX Architect and UX PM to successful shepherd projects from conception through dev start and then again through Design QA.
Collaborated with product managers, developers, other internal stakeholders and customers. * Invented the Design QA process to overcome a lack of formalized QA practices.