Sometimes UX is forgotten. Development steamrolls ahead of product vision and design strategy, and we end up with a tech-led project that feels unrelated to the initial product team request.

This became clear when a stalled internal BT project required help to progress into the next round of funding.

Initially, what seemed like an easy task, “make the front-end screens more user-friendly”, soon developed into a far more complex design leadership role requiring guidance and expansion of the vision with concise planning of the next set of deliverables.

It was clear that Continuous Discovery approach was required to align the disciplines, identify opportunities, and develop measurable hypotheses.

Collaboration & Team Mentoring

Each team member, spread across the globe, worked in a siloed yet agile way, which meant no one explained the “bigger picture” or provided context to their deliverables, so the disciplines seemed very fractured.

Making the UI more user-friendly was the least important part of the role. Design vision and concepting had to come first in the design discipline, and the rest of the team had to focus on showing how each of their deliverables related. The focus was on tying the full team together and delivering, via visual storytelling, a slick, fact-based presentation with a clear roadmap to senior stakeholders

Positive reinforcement & storytelling

The business data was extremely complicated. There were many negative facts and figures shown to leadership via ‘apologetic’ presenting.

For example, telling leadership that “only 10,000 reports have gone through the system” is very negative compared to “the first 10,000 reports that have gone through have an accuracy rate of over 95% and took under 10 minutes, which by hand would have taken 1 week using 2 employees”. This statement alone shows increased data accuracy, a huge decrease in effort and time, and that this platform is a clear money-saving initiative for BT.

Conclusions

Once the team came together to detail a more concise roadmap of deliverables, hypotheses to test and validate, and could show tangible results, the £1 million funding was easily secured.

Technical architecture is a challenge when designing any solution, but working as a team, these challenges become opportunities for the user experience that all team members engage in solving.

Faced with the most complicated section of the User account area, which had only ever been added to and never redesigned, even after multiple attempts, stage 1 was to understand what was really going on.

Team collaboration

Following an extremely complex technical and user flow investigation, it became clear that we were dealing with multiple platforms providing and storing data, each with different security requirements, and users had very different access needs. But perhaps the most complicated concept to understand was that a defined role for one area was not the same for another; therefore, a User role for the billing platform had the same rights as an Admin role for billing, and all the Admin role setting allowed was to assign other users, on the front end with different roles… still with me?

Nothing was documented from previous work, so in addition to identifying the current flow, the team started to document each process, and we ran our squad without a project owner reporting directly to the senior product team.

Core Problem

When interrogating profile data, it became clear that the majority of users did not have a mobile phone number saved, but when checking with the Identity squad, they were upgrading systems to include mandatory collection of mobile phone numbers. This was just one example of a complete disconnect between squads, resulting in incompatible systems and data collection.

Changing the requirement for a mobile number seems easy; however, the Billing Squad also did not save a mobile number and, in fact, required a landline number for paper bills.

This is just one of many examples of the huge internal working disconnects, alongside technical constraints that we faced.

Note:
A complete paper could be written on how the changes in team structure, working practices, introduction of new methodologies, plus the changes in technical capabilities, affected the way this system had been added to over many, many years. Resulting in a complete monster that was nearly impossible to update… but that’s for another day!

Conclusions

UAM is at the heart of all BT Service offerings, and seeing it as central to all was the complete opposite of how it had been seen and worked on before. We did not treat this system as an add-on to others, and when the tribe understood that, they changed their working practices, and we came together rather than working in siloed squads.

With the tribe more in sync, the squads became aligned, resulting in the design disciplines working more closely. “When 150 designers are all reworking form fields for different squads, there is something very wrong with the design practices being followed!”.

Visually, we maintained simplicity, but under the hood, the complexity and detail are still unchallenged today. Once completed, it was seen as a great success, and this project helped shake up how design was included at the tribe and squad level, resulting in UX and design playing a much earlier role in product development.

This also kicked off the discussion around the need for pattern libraries and innovation/ creation coming from the full design process rather than just component design.

When faced with a clean design slate, it can be easy to run away with an idea...

The Clean Cooling Network is a government-led initiative to facilitate and build cooling infrastructure through engagement, education, training, and self-development in Africa. Resulting in a thriving community of food producers, scientists, educators, transporters, engineers, and more growing, selling, and transporting produce worldwide through a physical cold chain successfully built and managed within Africa by Africans.

Continuous Discovery

Introducing this framework was vital. Our first strategic decision between Product, UX, and Engineering was to use off-the-shelf CMS, Community, and Learning platforms, enabling us to develop quickly, react and change effectively, and use allocated budget and resources efficiently.

This resulted in an ecosystem of digital platforms available to the client and customer that were incrementally customised and developed as the programme flexed. The complete spectrum of UX, design, and engineering was considered during this project, embracing a “fail fast” mentality.

Incorporating AI as a member of our team, at the design concepting stage, for content summarisation, and for continual testing of the backend, empowered us to maintain consistently high quality across the board.

Mentoring & Collaboration

This project united a range of collaborators from academic institutes to farming communities, each with very different needs, capabilities, and technical access.

Along with managing design and development, we trained teams to use the digital platforms. The aim was to hand over as much of the ‘day-to-day engagement’ to the team on the ground in Africa.

Conclusions

Leading the digital team, writing and managing delivery plans, and tracking and showcasing the digital results to senior stakeholders were all part of the job. This enabled our team to flex and move as the programme changed whilst maintaining vigorous internal processes permitting a ‘safe space’ to test ideas and to design “best-in-class” experiences.

The pace of work regularly changed, with opportunities for self-learning, team collaboration, and the development of best practices when engaging with different cultures across the globe. This was never a simple project, with many spinning plates, but extremely rewarding!

Fenty was initially brought to life by the beauty, opulence, and wow factor of the design, as well as the precise, effective, and engaging architecture created to stand out from the crowd.

This was no ordinary online shop. The website reflected the uniqueness of the brand and the shopping process. The architecture delivered both an exploratory and precise experience, aiming to keep users engaged.

This was a truly agile collaboration between the agency teams of design and development on a very short timescale, resulting in the creation and delivery of a luxury, unique online shopping experience.

Deliverables

Sitemap

Functional Mobile Wireframes

Functional Desktop Wireframes

Ecommerce Process Flows

Find out more from our In-depth UX investigation >

Note: This project is an excellent example of how the business requirements differed hugely from the user needs, resulting in the website winning awards for its design but the online business concept lasting less than a year. Following this, it was clear that offering complete programme management, across disciplines and up to senior client leadership, was vital in every project.

Loro Piana is a high-end luxury Italian brand offering clothing, shoes, and accessories made with fine materials such as silk, cashmere, baby cashmere, and rare vicuña wool. The challenge for this brand was to offer an online experience similar to that of the rich and luxurious in-store reality but with a detailed, digital taxonomy.

Deliverables

Competitor Review

Sitemaps

Functional Mobile Wirefarmes

Functional Desktop Wireframes

Ecommerce Process Flows

Leadership presentation and signoff

Conclusions

Engaging interactions were used to “Reawaken Your Senses”. Delivering an all-round experience aimed at the user’s senses.

Soft luxury materials were represented with seamless interactions and access to all via the hierarchical navigation.

By tempting the user with emotive language, imagery, and interactive content, we were able to deliver a digital experience as a replica of the store, without the user ever leaving their house!

The testament to this experience design is that it is still in use 8 years later.

Find out more from our In-depth UX investigation >

https://loropiana.com/

Greater Manchester Apprenticeship & Careers Service requested a rapid, agile delivery of the information architecture and design which organised their content.

Combining a bold, youthful, modern design with a simple yet efficient architecture allowed easy access to core content such as apprenticeships, education & training, future career opportunities and career enhancing activities.

The aim was to develop a templated architecture using cross linking via content for a young and technically savvy user group across multiple platforms and devices.

Deliverables

• Sitemap

• Visual Desktop Wireframes

https://gmacs.co.uk/

Southport College and Southport University Centre required a new interactive and user focused website. The challenge was to create a visual and architectural experience based on the student type, delivering related content to each. Core student types included: 16-18 College, Higher Education, Apprenticeships and Adult Learners.

A unique digital interaction was proposed, allowing users to consume all related content, whilst remaining in the same area of the website. This distinction between different user areas was then supported by the design.

Linking between core content was prompted via the global and primary navigation, which offered fixed visual sign posting. In-depth investigation of content was conducted through interaction via functionality such as content accordions, videos, galleries and cross links. Secondary areas of content, offered access to events, news, third-party applications and social media platforms, and was delivered inline with related content.

The result was an efficient, organised and hierarchical information hub which offered delivery and consumption of content via multiple interaction possibilities.

Deliverables

• Interpretation of the Usability Investigation

• Sitemap

• Visual & Functional Desktop Wireframes

https://www.southport.ac.uk/