Connect Explorer

pre-release Aug 17, 2015

EagleView (previously Pictometry) had a tool used for navigating Pictometry imagery, but over the years it had become slow and overloaded with feature-creep. They had reached a business case for building a new lighter weight product and had a goal to move existing customers to this new platform over time. The first release was coming up with a tight deadline and there hadn’t been a designer working on the product yet.

I was asked to come in to do a design pass.

ConnectExplorer was built. I did an initial design pass to allow the product to move forward, but I stayed in the project for longer and worked closely with the engineering team. Eventually, the user interface was reorganized and simplified and interactions were improved:

• Grouped similar functionality together.
• A new panel-based layout to maximize map space.
• Increased the font size to improve legibility.
• Improved interaction flow of tooling and map navigation.
• Applied many of the design patterns I had developed for other EagleView products. The patterns had to be modified a little since the product was using a more limiting front-end development framework.

Organized sketches after a design studio session with other designers at EagleView.

During the time I worked on this product, I developed a series of research-based personas for the larger user-base and proto personas for lower priority personas. The research helped differentiate between purchaser and user personas which helped in the prioritization of new features. This process helped kickstart the development of personas for other EagleView product families. During this process I:

• Prioritized the research and development of personas.
• Conducted user interviews and researched various job roles.
• Worked with a junior UX Designer to develop proto-personas for lower-priority personas.

I conducted guerrilla user studies during a the user conference FutureView 2015. Some of the work conducted included:

• Usability testing of potential changes on how the measurement tools, using an InVision prototype.
• First-click analysis to see how users were able to access content via the condensed UI, using Chalkmark.
• User interviews and informal conversations with users to get a better understanding about their roles and the software they use and why.
• Beyond this work, I worked on ways to improve our UX Team’s toolset as it relates to developing prototypes, and make connections with different teams to help recruit users for interviews and studies.

Beyond working directly with users, I also worked with other teams to get ideas on issues brought up by users. Some of the teams I worked closely with include:

• Training team
• Technical support teams
• Regional technical managers

I facilitated a design session with the engineering team relating to the navigation of imagery within the map. This work evolved and I eventually created a map-interactions severity matrix. This created a full understanding of all the possible scenarios that could happen while navigating through imagery. It uncovered edge cases and also allowed me to guide how the map should function and how microcopy should behave.

This document was used by engineers to make improvements in the middle-layer software that was handling image navigation.

• Designed interaction flow across the application.
• Created mockups and prototypes using Balsamiq.
• Designed the user interface.
• Advocated for a shift in product management model to include UX, the training team and user studies as part of the process from a user advocacy perspective.
• Conducted design studio sessions, user interviews, first-click analysis and prototype development for guerilla user testing.
• Prioritized design and interaction model changes after observing users use the tool.
• Mocked up and prototyped ideas to share with team and stakeholders.
• Worked closely with product owner and development team to make interactions more consistent, and to come up with simpler solutions that were technically feasible and met timelines.
• Assisted in the creation of a customer survey for the product’s pre-release.
• Worked closely with development team to find ways to break up stories to balance velocity and design quality for current and future sprint cycles.
• Created final assets.

• Design methods: customer interviews, first-click analysis, clickable prototypes, (guerrilla) usability testing, research audiences, ad hoc personas (created by somebody else), surveys, sketching, white boarding, wireframes & design review
• Design tools: Pen/Paper, Whiteboard, Balsamic, Fireworks, InVision App, Framer, Chalkmark (for first click analysis), Firebug
• Communication: Skype, WebEx, GotoMeeting, Google Hangouts

The images above show how the product looked before I was asked to get involved. The product already contained a lot of functionality.