Improving HPE product interoperability

The mission

Make the search for HPE product interoperability more user friendly

Team

Single Point of Connectivity Knowledge (SPOCK) Team; included project managers, product owners, content strategists, and developers

Contributions

UX design, UX research, secondary research, primary research, wireframes, mockups, prototypes, design strategy

Position

User Experience Design Intern
Jan 2019 - May 2020

The challenge

SPOCK is used by 50,000+ users to determine interoperability between HPE products. However, it is outdated, redundant, and inefficient. I led the design efforts to update the UI to lead to an efficient interoperability experience.

Although I cannot show all I have worked on due to confidential information, I would love to express what I have accomplished at a high level. This information is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Bank of America.

Daily tasks and responsbilities

Wireframing and Prototyping

Utilize feedback on wireframes and mockups to create a prototype of a refreshed SPOCK experience using Sketch.

Design meeting leadership

Initiate and lead weekly design meetings to discuss design status, findings, and progress, fostering collaboration and driving design efforts forward.

User Feedback and Testing

Reach out to SPOCK users to gain continuous feedback on design efforts, leveraging firsthand user insights within the team.

Usability and Information Architecture

Identify and address embedded usability problems by gathering user feedback and insights.

Collaboration with Developers and Product Managers:

Work closely with the Product Manager (PM) to prioritize features and align design efforts with product goals and roadmap.

Accomplishments

New onboarding
Developed and tested four different onboarding styles (hotspot, Tooltip, Action directed, Product Tour) through four prototypes, gathering valuable user feedback and insights.
Delivered a new experience
Designed a fully responsive SPOCK experience and conducted three user tests to validate the effectiveness of the design across different devices and screen sizes.
Information Architecture
Reworked the information architecture of the platform, improving the organization and structure of content to facilitate user navigation and task completion.
Style guide
Created a comprehensive style guide that documented the updated experience, providing clear guidelines for consistent visual elements, typography, colors, and interactions.

Learnings

Designing for information density: Faced the challenge of designing for smaller screens in SPOCK, an information-dense application. Explored adaptive design techniques and considered potential data loss to ensure optimal user experiences.

Legacy code and design system integration: Worked closely with the visual developer to identify opportunities for visual updates in SPOCK while maintaining a seamless user experience within the Grommet Design System utilized by other HPE products.

Limited access to external users: Due to internship limitations, unable to directly engage with HPE clients who were SPOCK users. Learned to rely on internal HPE employees' feedback while recognizing the value of gathering insights from external users for a more comprehensive understanding.

Communicating with non-designers: Found it valuable to learn how to effectively communicate the importance of incorporating the user perspective to non-designers, highlighting that easy-to-implement solutions may not always be the best for users.