November 2011 - February 2012. Slovenia. / Desktop and Web application /

Summary

Iskratel is one of world's leading telecommunications equipment and solutions providers. They approached me to help them re-design their Element Manager line of products, both web and desktop applications.

Problem

There were two key problems. First, the restrains of existing infrastructure as the company has a really complicated integration process and dozens of products on the same backend. Second, we were designing for specific, domain experts with well distinct behavioural patterns.

Solution

The “simple” task of redesigning soon proved to be impossible. So, we started from scratch, with heuristic analysis and usability test of existing solutions. Followed by deep user research. The final solution included a completely new iconography and detailed design guidelines.

My role

Together with Emilija, their in-house researcher, I conducted user research and a couple of design research workshops with the employees. From there, I was the lead product designer (UX & UI).

Results

25% faster development process (as a result of our collaboration)
Re-design happened in most of the countries Iskratel is present (EU, Russia, Asia, US)
The independent usability study showed extremely high increase (30-40%) in satisfaction

Start with a strategy

After initial research, where the in-house team was of great help, it was crucial to start with a strategy. The client had numerous product, user and design specifications. But there was no clear design strategy.

Design strategy

The company hired me to design the UI with elements that would be implemented on several platforms and in numerous products. So, we proposed a new set of design guidelines to be followed by designers, developers and the rest.

Iconography

Part of the design process was also to design almost 200 icons to be used across the product familly.

Elemet Manager - Desktop

The desktop application serves as a dashboard to overview critical data and enables quick manipulations. It’s a truly domain specific user interface, with no room for creative outbursts.

The goal was to keep the core functionality known to the operators working with the software. But also to make their lives better through good, meaningful design.

Element Manager - web app

The web application uses the same visual language, though having it's own unique set of features.