Work : Enterprise, Healthcare, + B2B

Enterprise, Healthcare, + B2B

User Research, Strategy, Design, Instructional Design (Writing), and Usability Testing

Key challenge: quickly assessing specialized software and integrating needs of multiple stakeholders while re-conceptualizing a more intuitive and easier to learn interface for highly complex functionality

Description of how gestural UI works in Baron Lynx (formerly Omni) software application suite

Summary

I've worked with a number of companies and organizations who produce highly complex desktop and web applications and service integrations. Due to their inherent complexity, these engagements have required extensive user research and SME interviews or stakeholder workshops in the discovery phase, along with conceptual exploration, before detailed interaction designs or design revisions could be provided. Brief summaries follow for each vertical.

Enterprise: Baron Weather meteorology software (user research, SME interviews, and conceptual design of Omni software, which include Windows desktop and gestural UI components for usage in front of a chroma key wall for live television).

Healthcare/Medtech: Alexian Brothers Health Network (patient surveys, secondary digital research, stakeholder co-creation workshop to help conceptualize the next patient web site), Blue Shield (heuristic review), Becton Dickinson (instructional writing and multidisciplinary strategic design), OnTime Rx (heuristic review), Mays Landing Chiropractic (service design concepting), Noona (user interface design).

B2B: Frontrange Goldmine (conceptual design, interaction design, and usability testing of Goldmine CRM Windows software—13 applications in one), Cardscan (user research, conceptual design, interaction design of contact and scanning software for Mac OS, requiring approval from an Apple UI evangelist), Zintro (user research, conceptual design, interaction design of web networking platform for experts—a startup).

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Baron Weather

When highly complex subject matter requires robust functionality in an application, the design approach usually benefits from taking extra time to create a thoughtful design strategy (along with business strategy). Here the "paradigm" design (or concept design) lays a foundation for a more logical grouping of complex functions without showing all the details of the UI—making it easier to "stay out of the weeds" before a solid structure is in place.

Baron Weather - Team + Approach

TEAM: I was the lead UX researcher and designer on behalf of Rocket Communications (design agency), and mentored a junior UX researcher and designer who was on staff at Baron. Her contributions in assisting me with this high-pressure project were invaluable.

APPROACH: I was well aware that user research without training on the software would not be adequate for understanding user needs and key tasks, so I asked to attend a conference/training and then requested further 1:1 training from a Sales Lead (successful sales personnel are often a great training resource). I used SME interview techniques learned through my instructional design background for task analysis. This image shows a page from the Findings presentation.

Baron Weather - Process + Findings

PROCESS: stakeholder interviews, training, user research with meteorologists, and conceptual/high-level UI design.

We traveled to multiple U.S. cities to meet with meteorologists in their television studios to get input on their greatest challenges. These findings highlight their expectation of the software to surface detected weather conditions, without them having to dig for the right data product views, which would save them considerable time.

Baron Weather - Analysis + Strategy

Showing Baron Omni's previous default screen UI. Their system necessitated the use of two monitors and devoted a large amount of space to sequencing of clips or segments, which was not what users paid most attention to, and therefore was not intuitive.

Baron Weather - Analysis + Strategy

The amount of highly complex functionality could overwhelm both highly trained meteorologist users and the development team. In fact, their more successful interfaces streamlined the UI and options available, and were the most lauded. This example shows the chroma key wall UI, which I suggested could help guide the design approach of desktop UI as well, through its necessarily simple design and emphasis on critical functions.

Baron Weather - revised default screen

Changing to a one-monitor design, the map is intuitively front and center, tabs for different "rooms" of the UI (such as the chroma key wall, social media feeds, IP weather cams, and graphics editing in the "studio") were organized under tabs. The sequencer was now more efficiently and intuitively displayed vertically, and their popular data products (a core differentiator) were showcased more prominently.

Baron Weather - chroma key wall UI

Failing on air was consistently cited as a meteorologist's worst fear, and nowhere was that more likely to happen than when the meteorologist worked with gestural UI in front of a chroma key wall. My redesign incorporates a simulation tab where users can test orchestrating various views and segments they want to show live beforehand.

Alexian Brothers Health Network (ABHN)

Working as part of a team at TBWA/Chiat/Day, I guided user research and ideation for the next version of the Alexian Brothers' Health Network web site, and collaborated with the team on strategy. The stakeholders weren't sure how to find consensus amongst themselves on what to do with the site, so we started with an exploratory patient survey. This matrix shows the segmentation of patients (passive, moderate, acute) and caregivers.

ABHN Patient Survey

ABHN Survey Results - excerpt

ABHN workshop display panel

While the survey results were coming in and analyzed by our team and a quantitative analyst, we conducted secondary market research. Instead of presenting a traditional report with recommendations, we assembled display panels like the one shown here, and conducted a participatory workshop with stakeholders at their headquarters in Chicago.

ABHN workshop prompt

One exercise with ABHN stakeholders was to create their own persona based on the patient segmentations we identified together, and then, without thinking too much about it, sketch a quick and rough Home page that might meet the needs of this type of user.

ABHN - workshop contribution

Showing a participant's persona and Home page sketch.

ABHN features board

We also asked participants to brainstorm features, post them to themed boards, and dot-vote on them.

Noona

I designed some quick improvements to a symptom tracker for cancer patients for this Finnish startup.

Noona

My larger analysis (available as a download) challenges some of the requirements, and I adjusted my design to make the result of symptom input more useful.

Stakeholders spheres of influence

Part of my service design analysis for a small chiropractic business, this image shows a stakeholder map of relationships, all impacting the service of chiropractic patients.

Service Blueprint - excerpt

Part of the service blueprint for the chiropractic practice.

Becton Dickinson BD ProbeTech

The new BD ProbeTech system cut the amount of time spent waiting for tuberculosis results by 75%—as long as techs ran the somewhat complex tests correctly. A key focus and output for this project was a reference guide—essential for lab techs who typically had relatively low levels of education and worked with critical tuberculosis samples. Upon visiting the labs and interviewing lab techs, we found that desk space in the labs was minimal and it wasn't easy to turn pages of an instructional guide, so we designed a flip chart.

Becton Dickinson - product + packaging design

Our cross-disciplinary approach led to a more intuitive and effective design. For example, I recommended creating the tabbed holder for the reagent kits so that they could not be inserted in the instrument tray incorrectly (tab would block insertion), and use of symbols and colors that help the user match sample rack rows with the correct test processing trays. The result was prevention or minimization of potentially costly and critical user error, especially as test subjects were usually being quarantined as they awaited results.

GoldMine CRM

This Windows-based CRM includes the functionality of over 10 applications integrated into one. I worked with another senior UX design consultant to improve the user interface and usability test our designs.

GoldMine CRM - before redesign

Before our redesign, the hierarchy of information and tasks didn't seem right, and the top-level nav buttons on the right didn't allow opening of a tab that persists so the user lost a view by context-switching every time a new nav choice was clicked.

GoldMine CRM - after redesign

Some improvements of our redesign: a recently viewed list, function buttons that are contextual to the current contact selection, a contact mini-view in the bottom pane, and opening of a tab that persists when a top-level nav choice is clicked on the left.

Zintro - contextual inquiry

Screenshot from contextual inquiry with user of original UI for Zintro, a web-based platform for connecting businesses to experts for very short consultations (usually hours in length). The team found the recorded user sessions extremely illuminating, and they provided evidence for my design recommendations and rationale.