BlueClerk Mobile App UX Audit + Redesign
Client: Dasol Group
Roles: User Researcher, Designer, Workshop Facilitator, Client Liaison
Duration: 3 Weeks
Description
BlueClerk is a Field Services Management startup with a unique RFID tagging system for machinery. The concept is to allow Field Service Technicians such as HVAC Techs and Electricians to quickly access service histories and preventative maintenance records on their mobile device with a quick and easy NFC scan on a proprietary tag affixed to their customers' machinery.
The Problem
Evaluate the BlueClerk mobile interface and make suggestions on how it could better support the technician in the field.
The Solution
With such a short window to make an impact on the product, we had to triage where we could make the biggest impact quickly.
After some very insightful user interviews and a round of competitive analysis, we determined that reorganizing the application to present the main priorities for users in the field (accessing work orders and scanning tags to find work histories) right on the home screen would present the strongest opportunity for BlueClerk to improve their product. Multiple rounds of testing allowed us to improve upon and verify our hypothesis.
Read on to see the other changes we made to increase the overall usability and appeal of the BlueClerk app.
“Justin and his team were able to rapidly understand my business and customers in a way that amazed us! They used that understanding and rounds of direct testing to open our eyes to a different approach we hadn’t considered which will work way better for our users in the field.
Christopher Norton, Owner - Dasol Group”
The Approach
Interview and empathize with techs in the field, audit the current prototype against user needs and context.
We immediately conducted user interviews to gain a deep understanding of their jobs, the current tools the use to do the same kind of work, and empathize with their daily lives. We synthesized that information down into a prototypical user persona to guide our work around a tangible data point.
We intended to test the application with the users at the outset to gain a baseline understanding of the usability of the prototype that Dasol Group had coming in, but the databases broke right before kickoff of the project rendering that impossible for us to even mock up, and we had to figure out another way to proceed.
Without the ability to conduct a baseline test and under a time crunch from the aggressive schedule, we opted to conduct an audit of the prototype screens and compare that against the day-to-day user goals, frustrations, and motivations we identified in order to come up with a direction we felt solid about.
Our User: Jared Braggs
His Age: 32
His Occupation: HVAC Tech
His Devices: iPhone, iPad, Desktop Computer
Synthesizing user research insights into the most pressing data points through affinity mapping.
Jared’s Motivations
Save time
Maximize efficiency
Personal accountability
Simplicity
Jared’s Goals
Efficiently diagnose and fix problems
Quickly access unit history
Complete work orders quickly and accurately
Jared’s Influences
Liabilities
Skeptical of new technology
Industry is slow to adopt new technology
Jared’s Frustrations
Redundancy in paperwork
Equipment and data are hard to look up
Current applications don’t always do what they’re supposed to do
It takes time to learn a new system
The Plan
Reorganize the product to prioritize workflows most important during primary context of use
Speed work, reduce steps: Identify the most important workflows in the app to users’ daily work and bring them to the surface of the experience.
Reduce cognitive load: Identify unnecessary functionalities and move them to the periphery of the experience or remove them entirely.
Ease operation: Reorganize layouts to place the most commonly used buttons and functions near the thumbs on mobile devices to enable one-handed operation.
Improve On-boarding: Create animations and insert them into the workflow to explain the NFC scanning process to users who often will be new to the procedure.
Speed Work, Reduce Steps
Surface the primary in-the-field workflows on to the home screen
Original home screen on the left with a mix of buttons placed awkwardly at the top of the screen, and our new home screen proposal on the right with the primary functions of the app featured on the home screen.
Reduce Cognitive Load, Ease Operation
Redesign for cognitive and physical human factors
Our new menu on the right responds to the human factors considerations of thumb reach as well as accommodating our cognitive capacity to keep about 7 items in short term memory easily – rarely used items moved to more appropriate levels of depth in the application. Original 11-item menu on the top-far-left is inaccessible. Based on desktop design patterns, the upper-left corner hamburger menu is far away from the thumb.
Improve Onboarding
I created a quick “scan tag” animation inserted into the scanning flow to help users new to the process understand the interaction, and even help experienced users know what part of the phone contains the NFC antenna. The Apple-required iPhone “NFC Scan Sheet” alone proved insufficient in training users how to correctly complete the procedure.
I created and deployed this animation in under an hour to test the concept (which was successful!), a final version would potentially look quite a bit more polished.