Design Standards Brief- To control large antenna arrays, the user interface was becoming dangerous for users to use. Maintainers had used walkie-talkies to communicate back to the person using the onscreen antenna interface so they wouldn't get hurt in the process. The UI was antiquated and was no longer competitive in the market. After performing multiple in-field heuristics and user testing, I directed my team to start developing concepts that were simplified and modern but based on UI human factors, color theory, and international iconography. The result was an easy-to-use, highly accepted UI that was adopted across all of the product lines. Second, my team and I created the first UX style guide in the company that guided senior staff, sales, engineering, and development in future feature development.
Original device interface
Concepts based on user observations
Onscreen keyboard concept
Initial prototype UI
Final working prototype on Bootstrap
Lots of planning for complex system & UX development
I scheduled everything around engineering and BD
Three user personas were identified
And then we did a lot of user testing (SUS, NASA TLX)
User feedback surveys conducted
SUS results of UI concept
The UI style guide
Creative Brief Proposal- Part of getting design work is submitting creative briefs describing what work will get done and how we are going to do it. After getting back from Afghanistan, I worked with a senior member of my team to draft a proposal to update the platform and therefore the user interface and interaction paradigms to modern standards. Once we were approved, I transferred the brief into a task and timing spreadsheet with the costs associated with each task. We were successful in the first iteration and ended up employing three more of my direct reports to continue efforts on the large program.
The design brief overview
Equipment User Pocket Guide- Rather than struggling with technology taking them away from their critical mission, Search and Rescue users in adverse and devastated areas of the world needed a rugged, fit-in-their-pocket guide to the technology they were using.
Setup User Pocket Guide- With a large, semi-trailer-sized radio antenna system, users over 50 miles from "the office", needed easy to carry, easy-to-use quick start guide. This pocket guide was carried by both new and experienced users in their back pockets. It saved multiple trips and lost time back to the HQ to reference the large collection of user manuals to simply get the system set up.
