Introducing UX Design and Strategy at Abas
Overview
- Project Type: UX Strategy, Management
- Industries: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- Date: 2018
- Role: UX Designer, Researcher, and Developer.
- Responsibilities: Assessed UX maturity, incorporated design thinking, performed user research, prototyped, tested, and communicated across cross-functional teams.
Project Summary
When I first joined Abas USA as a developer, my role was described as "mostly coding, with a 5% focus on design." However, it quickly became apparent that the lack of design thinking had created systemic flaws, resulting in development efforts that were reactive and sales-driven rather than user-centered. As soon as I recognized this, I began integrating design into our development process, incrementally and steadily gaining the support of cross-functional teams in the process.
Challenge
I identified a number of issues that I believed were hampering our process and our products:
Sales-driven features
Features prioritized by sales led to complex, unintuitive software.
Reactive development
Developers worked on tickets ad hoc, resulting in a fragmented user experience.
Lack of design direction
Implementing customer requests verbatim led to scope creep and feature bloat.
No style guidelines
A lack of standard design guidelines or components created inconsistencies in the products.
Software bloat
Each customer had their own custom version of standard apps, making maintenance challenging.
The effects of these issues combined to reduce the usability of our products, accrue a vast amount of technical debt, decrease customer satisfaction, and lower the overall market competitiveness of our solutions.
The Solution
Because I didn't have a lot of buy-in at the outset, I started introducing incremental improvements to our product development lifecycle. I performed much of my initial product research during training and outside of my normal duties. Without immediate or direct access to our customers, I worked with SMEs, consultants, account managers, and through proxies on-site to understand our users better. I had a rough plan of where and how I wanted to impact our existing process.
Introducing Design Thinking
User Research Through Proxies
I asked on-site support technicians and account managers to help me conduct low-budget user research by doing what they were already doing - observing and interacting with our clients. Their reports provided me with crucial insights that even they admitted they might not have noticed, had they not consciously documented them.
For my own understanding, I made deliverables such as user stories and task flows, which my fellow developers later found helpful for their own related work.
I made many flows like this during my training and research, for both development and design tasksWireframes & Prototypes
I created simple prototypes and low-fidelity wireframes both for myself and for my fellow developers whenever we worked together. In addition to helping us communicate better, these tools allows us to visualize potential solutions - and catch potential issues - much earlier in the process.
Program Findings Examples
Improving Engagement
Enhance Requirements Gathering
In my initial discussions with customers, I sought to understand their needs better by asking a few more "whys". In one situation, a client insisted on digitizing an entire spreadsheet, so I asked that I be guided through the work day of the person who would be using the app. Although the client was surprised by this request, they discovered that only a few key fields were required by the workers. As a result, they saved a great deal of money and training time, and we earned their respect and trust.
Involving SMEs and Stakeholders
Throughout the development process, I engaged subject-matter experts, account managers, and other stakeholders early and often, ensuring their insights informed the process. These people were frequently "on the ground" with our clients, and not only had insights into how they felt and thought, but had valuable expert opinions on what features might make the greatest impacts.
Standardizing Design Processes
Component Pototypes and UI Frameworks
Keeping in close collaboration with our marketing team, I started developing a UI framework and a pattern library starting with my own development projects, standardizing components and layouts as I needed them. My teammates were thrilled at the results and began implementing this library in our standard apps. This ensured brand consistency and significantly sped up the development process for everyone.
A variety of stylized app components that could be referenced from our framework library.Results
Through the incremental addition of these strategies, Abas USA achieved:
Enhanced Usability
Our products were reported to feel simpler, more intuitive, and more enjoyable to use.
Improved Satisfaction
Our clients were not only happy with the new product direction, but they said they felt heard.
Boosted sales
Customers were so happy with our results that they returned for more work, more often.
Improved Development Efficiency
Standardized components saved time and resources, and our developers were happier, too.
Positive Cultural Shift
The team became more collaborative and started championing user-centered design.
Reflections
Additional Challenges
- Resistance to Change: At first, people were hesitant to change established workflows. I had to consider what small, incremental changes would make the greatest impact on even my biggest skeptics.
- Resource Constraints: Balancing my role as a developer while trying to introduce UX methodologies meant managing my time effectively and often working beyond standard hours.
- Limited UX Tools: Starting with a limited set of UX tools and processes made it challenging to demonstrate their immediate value to the team.
Lessons Learned
Adaptability
As I transitioned from development to UX, I realized how important it was to be flexible.
Empathy is Crucial
Developing empathy for both users and team members was instrumental in gaining their support and understanding the core issues affecting our products.
Incremental Wins Matter
Large-scale changes are daunting; incremental wins helped build momentum and demonstrated the tangible benefits of a UX-driven approach.
Continuous Learning
Staying updated with UX trends improved my ability to introduce more efficient methods and tools.
Future Opportunities
- Enhanced Metrics and KPIs: Tracking more detailed metrics on usability and user satisfaction would help measure impact more effectively and justify further investments in UX.
- User Outreach: Providing a way for our users to give ongoing feedback without having to open tickets or pay consulting fees would offer continuous insights and strengthen user loyalty.
- Workshops and Training: Conducting regular workshops and training sessions on UX could help nurture the user-centric culture and keep everyone aligned.