THE CHALLENGE
The communication industry is becoming increasingly crowded with managed services solutions, making it difficult for businesses to find the right fit for their needs. Furthermore, many of these solutions are complex and difficult to navigate, leading to a poor user experience.
Background
mConnect was a new managed services solution developed by nexVortex, a cloud communication provider. As the lead UX Designer, I collaborated with the product and engineering teams to design and develop this new offering from scratch. This was also the flagship product that showcased our brand new design system.
Design Thinking Phases
- Empathize: I began by conducting user research to understand the pain points and needs of our target users, which included small and medium-sized businesses. Through interviews and surveys, we gathered insights into their communication challenges and how they currently manage their communication systems.
- Define: Based on the research findings, we defined the problem statement as: "Businesses need a managed services solution that is easy to navigate and tailored to their specific needs."
- Ideate: Using the research findings, we conducted brainstorming sessions with the team to generate a wide range of ideas for the solution. We then narrowed down the most promising ideas and began to develop them further.
- Prototype: Next, we created wireframes and high-fidelity mockups of the proposed solution. We also created a working prototype to test the design and gather feedback from potential users.
- Test: We conducted user testing with a small group of businesses to gather feedback on the prototype. We made adjustments based on the feedback and retested the solution to ensure it met the needs of the users.
Artifacts Created
- User Personas: We created user personas to represent our target users and ensure the solution was tailored to their specific needs.
- Empathy Map: We created an empathy map to understand the pain points, needs, and wants of our users.
- Wireframes: We created wireframes to map out the structure and layout of the solution.
- High-Fidelity Mockups: We created high-fidelity mockups to give an idea of the final product design.
- Prototype: We created a working prototype to test the design and gather feedback.
- User testing report: We conducted user testing and gathered feedback, which we used to improve the design.
Result
The final solution, mConnect, was a user-centered application that was easy to navigate and tailored to the specific needs of small and medium-sized businesses. It received positive feedback during user testing and was successfully launched on the market. The design thinking process helped us to understand the needs of the users and create a solution that met their needs, resulting in a successful product launch. This product also helped aid in the sale of nexVortex to BCM One.
Prototype available here