Streamlining communication
across a global network
The Challenge
Our team was initially engaged to provide design support for Pfizer, a global pharmaceutical company. From there, our expertise led to a longer-term relationship offering shared UX services across several digital applications within drug manufacturing. For this specific initiative, we were tasked with assessing the current state of a communication tool and processes used across the shop floor by operators, team leads, and department heads.
The Approach
As lead designer, I worked closely with the product team to conduct a research effort in determining how we might streamline and optimize communication and the flow of information across the network to:
• Enable users to easily create, view, and manage critical information to address day to day matters in a timely resolution
• Provide users with increased visibility into what’s being worked on across the shop floor in “real time”
• Provide more flexibility within creating, sending, and viewing information
Through various working sessions and focused discussions, we worked closely with business stakeholders to better understand their needs and current pain points with the tool which helped to inform areas of opportunity. We started out by asking key questions to understand the landscape and synthesized the feedback across three distinct categories: People & Process, Activities & Tasks, and Tools & Technology.
These categories became the driver for how we organized findings throughout the entire process. Through prioritization exercises, we were able to focus on the T1 Operator and T2 Supervisor roles and their needs for MVP.
We found that:
• The current application does not support the level of detail needed for sending different types of information. By providing more flexibility, users will be able to send necessary information as needed without having to create workarounds
• Users expressed a general need for transparency and the ability to acknowledge communications or provide some way of insight into what’s currently in progress
• There is room to streamline processes so that communication does not get missed along the way
After validating and prioritizing key areas of opportunity with the business, I used block-level wireframes to further define top-level features for MVP.
After translating concepts to high fidelity design, I saw the opportunity for usability testing on our proposed designs for the MVP experience. After conducting usability testing sessions with six users with varying roles and levels of experience, we were then able to analyze the data to assess what’s working vs. not working. The final deliverable was a detailed readout with quick win solutions in terms of creating, sending, and managing information that were incorporated into the product backlog vs. long-term recommendations to consider for the future.
Additional Credit
–
Nicole Dery – Research Support
Design System – Kyle Cook, Phil Sullivan