OVERVIEW
Re’flekt was looking to expand the design team to improve usability of their ecosystem.
Moving from a heavily software engineer designed toolset to a more appealing software to get an edge in sea of tools aimed at technical users, where saving time getting people aquainted with the system, gives you a strong advantage over the competition.
ROLE
UX/UI designer
User experience design, Interaction, Visual design, Prototyping & Testing, Stakeholders communication, workflow optimisation.
RE’FLEKT is an Enterprise AR software company that makes industrial manufacturing, service, and training as easy as using a simple home appliance. By using visual guidance, real-time information and remote collaboration, RE’FLEKT ensures business continuity, increases operations efficiency, and solves talent shortage
I was hired to handle the application and softwares ecosystem, implement changes aimed at increasing retention and product stickiness.
One big challenge while working at Re’flekt was to reorganize the project structure, I came into a very small team of UX/UI designers handling tasks from the development team, without thinking about the big picture of the company and working on small features that didn’t integrate well with each other.
Another challenge was to introduce the Design team to a more structured work approach.
When I joined the company the workflow was very UI dependent, starting straight away with the high fidelity mock ups, resulting in a lot of time wasted in building mockups that resulted in discarded iterations.
There was also almost no consideration of User feedback or Testing.
The main clients of Re’flekt Gmbh are companies that are looking for cost saving solutions for technicians trainings with ONE viewer modular Augmented Work Platform for front-line workers, or with REMOTE enterprise-ready Augmented Reality Remote Support solution.
But then even though the client and investor might think about cost saving solutions, I had to think about the actual users and focus on time saving solutions, and develop application to prevent user frustration during learning and everyday use.
As explained already I was hired as the main UX/UI designer on Re’flekt Product lines.
The rest of the team was split between products and developing marketing materials for campaigns, exhibitions and the Re’flekt website, so there was a bigger focus on UI.
The management saw that this wasn’t enough to make Re’flekt a big name in the market and increase convertion rate.
What I brought to the team was my ability to focus on usabilty, accessibility and users primarily.
I was able to restructure the workflow and the asset hand-off process, rebuilding a Design System for the company with figma, optimizing the time consuming process from the development team of looking for the latest design iteration.
With figma components libraries and istances the UX/UI team was then able to apply one change that was then translated into every design iteration.
I applied the design thinking processes into the workflow and showed how starting with laying out a plan by building user flows and journeys helps us have a birds-eye view of the process, focus on what is important and how the different elements should interact.
Building early concepts and sharing them early on with developers and managers was key to optimize the company workflow.
With this approach we completed several feature implementation that were dragging on for more then a month in just a couple of weeks.
One of the skills I acquired through the years is how to communicate ideas to clients and collegues.
But of course showing without telling is a good way to test your concepts, so we tested how a fully functioning prototype would sit with the development team, since the design team never had time to develop one fully.
The reception from management was very positive, being able to test the application and see how it would work weeks in advance. It was also a great way to communicate development of transition times for the different animations.
Fullscreen – press F
Restart – press R
Applying design thinking kowledge and using a user center approach helped the development team feel more involved with the Design process and vice versa.
The different departments felt more involved with each other by virtue of a more frequent communication, the development team started scheduling more frequent UX feedback rounds for the Design team to take part in and give feedback on how the developmet was progressing.
It improved collaboration and communication and I am glad that I could be part of this improvement.
