JLL Mobile
🎨 My Role
UX Designer, User Acceptance Tester
UX Designer (2), UI Designer, Business Analyst, Project Manager, Client (8)
🤽♀️ My Team
🕺 My Contributions
Concept Ideation, Wire Framing, Prototyping, User Research, Information Architecture, Scope Adherence
🔧 My Tools
Adobe XD, draw.io
🕓 Timeline
2 month design sprint, 3 week testing
Who is JLL?
Client Intro
JLL is a commercial real-estate firm and a fortune 500 company.
Challenge
IntelliCommand is an existing product but user adoption has been poor. Technicians’ aversion stems from a multitude of pain points: the tool requires a level of digital expertise not held by the workforce, the organizational hierarchy for data retrieval is not intuitive, user security clearance is rigid/unmapped, and the solution is not compatible with the mobile nature of their work (desktop only).
Inquiry
An enterprise solution for field technicians to read from and write to their asset database. A companion tool for predictive maintenance and historical diagnosis.
This is Jack Ryan…
User Research
Routine: “My way hasn’t failed me in 20 years.”
Skeptic: “If I can’t touch it, I can't trust it.”
Tech-Averse: “These initiatives never stick.”
Thoroughness: “I cross all my t’s and dot my i’s.”
Understanding Jack’s mental map
Re-wiring the information architecture – I led empathy workshops to uncover the mental map of our users. We performed a card stacking exercise to excavate user intuition. Classifying features and components into piles of harmony, our subjects conveyed their perception of similarity and difference. This exercise helped organize our associations between features and shaped the architecture of our app.
What success looks like
Project Goals
Goal #1: A simple path to data retrieval & interpretation
Goal #2: Flawless user-specific permissions management
Goal #3: Mobile-first, device-agnostic, accessible design
We leveraged new technology, NFC tags, to streamline workflows. A journey that may have required 3 or more clicks (Which location? Which building? Which machine?...), can now be achieved with zero. The user can bring their device within proximity of the tag and navigate directly to their destination of interest.
Ideation
Goal #1: A simple path to data retrieval & interpretation
NFC tags enable an instant trigger to call to the database. The concern, however, the weight of the data calls. Load times were undesirable, suboptimal for the on-demand use case. Plan B: circle back with Ben/Team UX for ideas.
V 1.0: Simplify
I introduced an interim screen, which hosts summary read-outs and buttons that call only the desired data set. This summary screen serves as an introduction as well as a resource for quick problem solving without requiring the full breath of the details page. Therefore, the user will either satisfy their query here or better define the guardrails of their data request which will deliver data with expedience and accuracy.
V 2.0: Optimize
An all-at-once data call resulted in undesirable load times and lent too much detail for many uses cases. This lead to a revamping of my initial hypothesis. Simplify —> Optimize:
Trigger data retrieval earlier in the journey, allowing it to load in the background;
Avoid all-at-once data presentation.
A single journey that verifies all unique user types. This path of least resistance begins from launch of the app and grants user-specific permissions at the individual level.
Goal #2: Flawless user-specific permissions management
Problem statement:
Contractors arrive to an unfamiliar site assignment and hope to be let in the digital front door. Site access is opaque and impersonal; troubleshooting is unreliable and cumbersome; all this, occurring while the contractor sits idle in physical and digital limbo.
Fool-proof authentication
Contractors registering with an admin pre-approved domain gain user-specific site access in an instant. The algorithm I wrote strengthened confidence, improved security, and reduced troubleshooting efforts. This air-tight workflow ensures access intended users and affirms those denied are bared with intent.
Single request granting multi-site access
The system grants user access to all admin-approved work sites based on their domain and location. This is an important workflow achievement, saving the valuable hours formerly wasted traveling to each site to gain individual access permissions.
Simple admin management
To enable further customization, we built a robust administration portal for the product owner to manage permissions on a user-by-user basis. The admin is able to toggle access down to its atomic state, restricting by location, duration, and read/write functionality.
Goal #3: Mobile-first, device-agnostic, accessible design
Design Intention #1
Throughout user discovery it was evident that there were physical barriers to adoption. The core user, a tech-averse, my-way-or-the-highway, industry-veteran, displayed resistance to change. They also held physical limitations due to deficiencies in vision, dexterity, or lack of experience with operating mobile applications.
Training is expensive and learnability is a question mark, so intuition was our north start.
Physical barriers to adoption
Design Intention #2
All our design decisions regarding buttons, copy, navigational logic, contrast, size, and beyond catered to the users’ physical limitations. Large buttons for thumbs that have been bruised, burned, and bandaged for 20+ years. High contrast UI, dynamic zooming, horizontal view, customization. User adoption was our goal, and user resistance to change, our barrier.
We built a companion tool rather than a process replacement. Use it when it’s helpful, pocket it when it’s a burden.
Human-centric design system
Design Intention #3
Design inspired by function
Our users are hyper-specialized, so we crafted a familiar look and feel. IntelliCommand is designed for a comfortable transition from interactions with physical assets (machines).
Thermostats and pressure gauges are optimized for data visualization. Raw data, no BS, but they only display a snapshot of the present. Our designs piggyback on the invaluable trust and latent user understanding of hardware displays, and our technology elevates user capabilities by delivering a ledger of historical data.
James Ryan, our user persona, can’t sleep without the confidence that machine XYZ won’t experience critical failure during the night. Before now, he could only gain said confidence from a site visit, to XYZ, and every machine like it. Last night, with a few keystrokes, James released himself from worry, ‘til the morning.
Map view enable users to expedite site discovery, displaying those nearby. Quick actions like work order management can now be completed on the go, another unlock delivered by mobile.
Users can pin their high-priority sites and filter their list view for a glance at the health of their entire portfolio.
Users with write functional permissions can actively write to the database, uploading notes and even remotely controlling machinery.
2
Conclusion
App Store launches
2000
Technicians on-boarded
5
Tested across devices
Remote access improves workflow, enables multi-tasking, and eliminates waste in transit. Off-site maintenance access delivers a new suite of predictive diagnosis and service preparation tools.
Reliable
Technicians, and other stakeholders are actively using the app as a tool for data reliability and process improvement. The insights we gathered throughout our discovery and design process shaped the architecture of a new and improved environment for enterprise success.
Antifragile
An on-site solution for mechanics that spend their workday atop ladders, underneath crawl spaces and everywhere in-between. It boasts a design that functions agnostic of any environmental, physical, or tech-competency limitations.
Flexible
We designed this tool for streamlining data requests, optimizing for speed and accuracy. Our innovative integration with NFC technology bypasses any motor decisions and transports the user directly to their destination sans keystrokes
Efficient
Next steps
Users tested a version of this tool 2 years ago and rejected it, that’s why we were brought in. So, the uphill battle we are facing is retraining and convincing users that the upgrades we have deployed are worthy of a second chance.
My plan to best position our tool for adoption is ensuring that users feel heard. I have built the foundation for a feedback loop that is efficient and results driven, next step, implementation. Leveraging a tool called qualtrics, we will not only passively collect user data, but also enable users to interface directly with myself and our design team. It’s like tech support but you won’t be left on hold.
