The Challenge
The business services fulfillment team for a major telco was struggling with a problem: It was difficult to construct the “story of an order.” This is because there was no single, universally accessible place for users across departments to enter or find notes. Notes had to be entered in specific places across systems that not all users had access or visibility to. That meant users were missing key communications or having to enter the same note in multiple places just to ensure visibility.
Our Approach
A sample of the notes application
As Experience Director, I led a cross-disciplinary team to observe users and conduct generative research to understand key communication points and milestones. We also worked closely with development teams to understand current systems we could build upon, finally delivering designs for the application that was developed and launched to users.
Our Team: Experience Director (yours truly), Experience Designer, Research Strategist, Project Manager, and Program Director. We also worked directly with the client’s Product Owner and development team as an embedded part of their product team.
What We Did:
User research with a cross-section of several user groups to observe processes, obstacles, and pain points, then synthesized to create a prioritized list of user needs and opportunities.
Designed concepts for a unified notes experience aligned with business and user needs. Conducted user validation.
Built a data dictionary to inform the notes tags and categories.
Solutioned revised lo-fi prototypes of user-validated concepts and vetted with technical architects and developers, refining designs during grooming to deliver high-fidelity prototypes and design documentation for developer handoff.
Contributed to the client’s user education content and training materials.
As Experience Director, I specifically:
Contextualized business goals, objectives, and outcomes for the team.
Ensured the team had the right information and resources to do their jobs and cleared up any ambiguity that proved an obstacle.
Course-corrected during project pivots and reviewed work for quality and adherence to business and user goals.
Acted as a key point of contact for our client and executive sponsors.
The Solution
What We Built: A universally available notes system with a flexible tagging and categorization system to make notes entry and retrieval fast and easy.
The Results: Introducing this new universal notes application:
Ensures transparent communication across departments, creating alignment and efficient transfer of knowledge
Saves note takers and finders additional steps, facilitating quicker transfer of crucial information