A major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing and maintaining aerial and astronautic systems. Throughout decades of activity, various system tools and control panels used for diverse purposes have been formulated in the organization. In my role, I catered to the growing need for the unification of all control panels and various tools. The main scope was to generate accessibility and a unified experience for the user.
The system was built as a basis for over 20 different panels in the organization. After reviewing the objectives with the team, we decided to start with one of the information management systems used by a large majority of users.
Working with PM, content, UX, and engineers
Working with engineers and front/back end users.
2019
The project’s main challenges arose due to; content sensitivity, multiple authorization levels, gaps between existing development capabilities and optimal the for the final UX. The different dashboards had different graphics and microcopy for similar tasks and action, and even more, for the same task or request, the different control panels offered completely different scenarios and processes.
This caused a situation where the same user, as part of his role, had to perform the same task non-intuitively and with the use of different tools, and sometimes even required the use of different devices. The ultimate vision was that a user will have a main system on his positioned device from there which he will have easy access to all the tools he needs without switching between systems or devices.
My main task was to provide a thorough research-based professional perspective on current systems and tools and to deliver insights and characterization for a new build of the system. In my role I conducted deep UX research, gathered insights from various sources, drove user interview sessions in which led to important insights such as; the most valuable features for users, most common problems, users intuitive tendencies.
I observed a sample of users while at work and tested the system’s usability, learned how users perform different actions and manage common processes, examined how information is usually managed by the organization and what are the common problems that users encounter daily at their desk.
The research phase led to several fruitful team reviews resulting in a number of solutions for each pain point, bringing us closer to a cohesive vision and a refinement of the system’s architecture.
The team review sessions allowed me to establish a cohesive system architecture initiated prototyping for the system’s key screens. I then performed a number of usability tests in order to locate additional deficiencies and pinpoint solutions.
A major challenge in the project was to bridge the gap in Angular development capabilities used by the organization and the desired deliverables developmental requirements. In our team reviews I proposed the possibility of moving to React, this due to its superiority to Angular.
After further examining pros and cons it was decided it’s best to harness the well-established Angular based knowledge of the development team in our favor.
However, it was important to me, not to compromise on maximum visual and functional accuracy of deliverables when using Angular components.
The finished product is now a powerful and versatile dashboard template that allows for multiple systems, customization and personalization, at both a departmental level and an individual user level. The product allows system administrators in each department to flexibly manage confidentiality levels according to authority groups and other requirements.
