I implemented end-to-end UX design process for a material management platform that optimized how materials are tracked for their R&D operations
Industry
Agricultural Science
Role
Experience Designer/Researcher
Responsibilities
User Research
UX/UI Design
Prototyping & Testing
Overview
Context
One of the largest multinatonal agricultural science companies initiated a comprehensive digital transformation to modernize their IT infrastructure and business workflow. Their vision was to build an entire custom IT workflow that supported the R&D pipeline for their crop science business. Their R&D pipeline was about building new products to sell in the crop science market. The client wanted to build a custom enterprise product to define, track, and manage materials across the business and would achieve the following main objectives:
Be a one-stop shop for materials within the organization
The platform would enable them to have a single source of reference to access information about a material they have within the company and any data-driven advancement decision made on a material.
Track the process to create a product throughout the entire system
One product that would handle all the shared needs from many different organizations that are involved in different R&D stages of getting material ready to be launched into the commercial sector.
My development teams contributed to the client’s analytics and integration operations in the catalog space by allowing R&D scientists and inventory managers to define and manage their materials in a cloud-based application. The team created new APIs integration that would talk to every legacy data source and sunset any old and incompatible inventory management applications to become a single source of truth of materials that exist in the organization.
The Approach
My Role
As Lead Experience Designer, I worked closely with product managers, development teams, and stakeholders, implementing the end-to-end UX design process in the catalog space from user research, information architecture, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing. MY UX contributions supported two workstreams. I produced dev-ready wireframes and prototypes, using the organization established design system.
Project Highlights
My UX research and design contributions is broken into the following project initiatives and impacts:
Drive UI Refinements with UX Design and Testing Support
I provided UX design and testing support for two workstreams, creating wireframes based on product requirements, collaborating with development teams during implementation, and leading A/B and usability testing sessions to drive UI refinements.
Discovery Efforts Led to Better Product Strategy
I spearheaded the discovery efforts to help stakeholders and Product Managers have a deeper understanding of the potential users and the current state of how materials were managed. The research outcome uncovered user needs and operational pain points, informing product strategy and future recommendations for this specific business function.
UX Research Showcase at the Quarterly Town Hall
I co-presented with client's Sr UX Product Designer at their Quarterly Town Hall Meeting highlighting the discovery work and future outlook for the client’s UX team. This was a huge opportunity for the UX team to showcase how UX research can help the development teams.
Final Thought
Project Reflection
This project allowed me flex between design delivery work and early discovery work, which demonstrated the value of embedding UX into the product and development process. I was transitioned off the project as the development teams continued to create new API integration and build the UI of this internal application. However, my UX contribution was recognized at the program-level where I presented my work at a program-level Town Hall meeting.
My Impact
Increased cross-functional confidence in early discovery
I demonstrated the value of early discovery to my client by bringing user perspective and operational pain points closer to product and business discussions. My research outcomes helped Product Managers not only build a shared understanding of the current state of a specific business foundations but also informed prioritization and roadmap decisions.
Decrease Silos + Increase Collaboration = Accelerated Design Delivery
In addition to delivering a streamlined design-to-development workflow across two workstreams, I improved the design team's intake process by making the teams shifting priorities and upcoming work visibile during the IT organization’s Jira to Aha migration. This helped break down silos, increase collaboration, and manage expectations between the design team and their product and IT partners.
Quotes
Pioneering a new age! I think showing everyone how much there is, is going to get it on their radars. I think it was important to show them, but also reiterate we don’t have all the details, that’s why you all are here, to help shape how this gets enabled across all platforms
–Product Manager
“Great job. Having key people recognize the good work, accuracy and thoroughness is a big win. Well done.”
–Senior UX Product Designer