I was asked to provide UX design support for an employee recognition product called Recognise.
I persuaded the team to follow a lean, user-centered design methodology. My first step was to establish sources of user data with help from stakeholders and team members.
By analysing that data and wroking collaboratively with the cross-functional team, I defined simple personas, identified problems and declared hypotheses. We used collaborative design workshops to generate ideas, then I took the most promising ideas and turned them into prototypes. We experimented with paper prototypes and Lucidcharts, but found that shared Axure prototypes best suited our working arrangements. Prototypes were tested rapidly and informally with user proxies and reviewed within the team. Designs were iterated rapidly until acceptance levels were high.
One problem we solved was finding a way to present a form that that was highly usable whether the client opted for a simple or very complex configuration with many sections. The solution we came up with was inspired by ‘stepper’ type checkout process. It guided the user through the process step by step, yet still allowed them to revisit and edit completed steps in an intuitive way.
We also designed a swipe-based mobile option for busy managers to quickly approve and recline requests.
The product was in the process of being built when I left the company for another opportunity.
This is what one of the stakeholders had to say about my involvement:
Nomination Prototype » Action management Prototype » Profile Picture Prototype »We have seen a massive value add from [Justin’s] involvement in the development of “Recognise”, where the quality of user experience design has improved significantly. We are able to create working prototypes faster and test them internally and with our clients before investing a significant effort in the subsequent development. This ensures that our developments are market led in a real sense and we create demand for it in parallel.
– Harmeet Chhabra, Divisional Head of Technology
