Value Created

• Built strong lasting relationships with my teammates across 8 product teams

• Helped develop a unified vision for each product

• Facilitated cross-functional team collaboration across modernization teams

• Identified previously separate areas for centralization

• Retired outdated software hamstring our current business

• Built a consistent and transparent user experience to optimize software training

The Story

In Winter 2018 I began an effort to lead the design team for the final leg of our company’s software modernization effort spanning 8 different product teams.

To establish the trust needed to achieve our desired goals, I set expectations of transparency and accountability by working closely with each team to define the vision for their product.

Define

We started off an investigation into the current systems and users by conducting over 80 hours of user interviews, screen recordings, and observations. 

We synthesized our findings, teasing out:

• The nature of the jobs and the systems

• The core concept at the root of each system

• The emotional state of our users while using the current system

• Identified similarities between systems and roles

• Defined the nature of the work and systems we need to create

We discussed our findings with the product teams, refining our assumptions, and our vision for together. 

By the end of our investigation, the team had:  

• Created 5 new relevant personas

• Drafted workflows user journeys for each app 

• Built strong cross-functional relationships with our product teams and end-users

• Established a shared vision for the products

The images below sampling some of the work were intentionally blurred to protect J.B. Hunt proprietary information

Design

During the design phase, I set up regular whiteboarding sessions with each product team to further develop specific flows that were uncovered during our design phase.

The images below sampling some of the work were intentionally blurred to protect J.B. Hunt proprietary information.

After a sketching session, we put together detailed wireframes and shared it back to the product teams for feedback and further iteration.

We had organic UI patterns established in previous modernization efforts that we leveraged for our UI design.

This helped us refine the design, and help the product owners write their requirements.

The image below sampling some of the work was intentionally blurred to protect potentially proprietary information.

After countless iterations, we turned our wires prototypes and took them for usability testing. 

The first round of usability studies we aimed to:

• Validate the major workflows and information architecture

• Identify gaps in the data, designs, or requirements

Each usability study was with approximately 3 to 5 users per product over several months.

After each test, we shared a report back with the product team, made and prioritized change recommendations, iterated and retested. 

Below is a sample report that we presented back to one product team.

The images below sampling some of the work were intentionally blurred to protect potentially proprietary information.

Develop

Once the team was comfortable with the workflow and UI, we documented the design using Adobe XD’s developer export or inDesign and had the product owner sign off on its completion.

The images below sampling some of the work were intentionally blurred to protect potentially proprietary information.

Determine

Because this is part of a modernization effort, we are currently measuring the success of the product using business adoption, system resiliency, and general usability as KPIs.

Once released, we will work with our product teams to determine focused business and user KPIs, and make gradual improvements.

Thank you

I want to say thank you to all of my teammates across products that I had the pleasure of working with. It was one of the best experiences that I have ever had on a team and I will treasure it forever