Design Process

Inspiration

In this project I largely followed the standard design thinking process with limitations imposed by what had already been done and what the client or regulations demanded. Some of the design work had already been started before I joined the project, including the concept and the business and user needs for the project. I hit the ground running by studying the customer journey that had been created prior to my joining. Based on the customer journey and supporting documents, I wrote a design brief mapping the problem statement, solution, primary and secondary user groups, and stakeholders. This helped me understand what we're building and what is necessary to meet the user needs.

Ideation

Part of the prototype had already been created, however, it still needed refinement before it was ready for testing. I applied the knowledge from the customer journey and the design brief to create new user flows, as well as updating the interface design to follow the client's guidelines. Once the Figma prototype was approved for testing by the client's stakeholders, I interviewed a selection of intended end users. I turned the data into a summarising report including the recommended directions to take with the design and briefed them to the client stakeholders. I advocated for the change and addition of certain features that the users would need - some of which were approved while others were blocked by other business or regulatory interests. I continued to refine and expand on the design until the end of the project, however, further rounds of user research were not scheduled - instead, the client stakeholders would evaluate the designs at regular intervals. Further user tests would have been ideal to include, however, due to the nature of the client and their industry it wasn't feasible.

Implementation

The implementation of the MVP began as soon as the first approved prototype was finished. The developers followed the design for the most part, giving suggestions and feedback on the limitations and useful additions based on development needs. Changes included setting hard limits for certain interactions and messages for certain back-end errors. The MVP and the design evolved jointly, conversing on user and technical needs, reaching a balanced compromise. The pilot was scheduled to start after my part in the project was done, so I can't speak to the learnings gained from that. Since the client was a large enterprise and the project had many outside dependencies, the business model was in the end unaffected by the design work. In fact, what was common during the course of the project was that business and regulatory needs would take precedence over design choices when they were in conflict with each other.

Learnings

The project first and foremost taught me about the limitations imposed by large enterprises. Several design choices were rejected, either due to business or regulatory pushback or sometimes even by limitations from the design system and design leadership of the company. The project required a lot of compromise, diplomacy, and knowing when to push back.

What I regard as the largest success in the process was that the designs were delivered in a timely manner and reached development quickly. Another success was considering the strict guidelines and regulations from the industry in the designs, many of which I had never encountered before.

What I would have liked to improve is including more user research on later points of the design process as well. The insights from stakeholders were abundant but the insights from users not so much. While the end product was lauded by the client, it was unclear how well it met the user needs.

Design Leadership

While a lead service designer was assigned to the project from the client side, in the end I was responsible for delivering the interface and the prototype which would be developed into the application. The service design lead would provide input regarding industry knowledge that I wasn't privy to, as well as ensuring the design would align well with the company's other applications, resulting in a harmonised experience.

The service design lead left the project later on and I took over the responsibilities of the entire design, being the only remaining designer in the project. I implemented a change in the design review process which was suffering from a bottleneck earlier. This change increased our productivity measured in cleared tickets of the sprint, since it ensured that the front-end developer would receive the designs earlier.

Arguing for more user-centric design was somewhat affected by the change in the team composition. For some design changes, having another supporting voice made convincing the team easier but for some others we were in disagreement. However, since I was the only person present for the user interviews, being the sole advocate for the user was preferable and I convinced the team to include design choices they were originally skeptical of.

The downside of bearing the whole responsibility of the design was that I wasn't as experienced in the industry as the internal service design lead had been. When evaluating the prototype with the client stakeholders, some changes were proposed based on requirements from the larger ecosystem of applications and regulations - something that having more knowledge about the company and the industry would have mitigated.

Evaluating Results

The primary metrics of success came from evaluation sessions with the client stakeholders. While positive user feedback was valuable in knowing the design had hit the targets, the absence of user tests later on in the project incurred a limitation on truly knowing if further design work was user-centric. The stakeholder evaluation sessions were often focused on information displayed and harmonisation with other client applications. Another angle of evaluation came from the developers, namely, could the designed features be implemented and if so, could they be implemented within the allocated time for the project. The MVP reached maturity within the appropriate time period, so ultimately the project (design included) was a success. Of course, the design work for the application did not stop there and to ensure that the knowledge was transferred to future designers, I gave a thorough handover to the client's design leadership and the next designer.