Application overview

A secured, cloud-based, mobile first, communication and collaboration platform that made specifically for enterprise businesses.

My role

I joined the company during the low tide as a UI designer dedicated for one particular mobile development. The company, at that time, had only one designer (currently expanded to have 3 UI designers, where the full design unit included the head of product design, UI designers, UX designers and product owners) and didn’t have a dedicated UX role so I was voluntarily handling both UI and UX using the knowledge and past experiences bringing out the best possible and feasible solutions. I worked closely with developers and product owners who were responsible for delivering each feature in order to extract the concrete set of requirements and provide visualized design to show to all stakeholders.

Goal for designing a mobile application

From the previous versions of the application, some important features were hidden in the wrong places resulting in the user rarely discovering them. Hence, my first goal in designing is to unify the design, standardize the look & feel and relocate/redesign the misplaced features to the right positions maximizing the usability.

Target audience

A mid-to-large size corporation and enterprise in various business sectors who wish to secure their communication through mobile application channel.

Process

The company adopted Agile development concepts and processes to use in daily work. The processes evolved from time to time to adjust to the rush of delivery, the staffs and company culture.

Everyday we had a stand up meeting for each feature team. Each person in the team gave a short update about a piece of work that they are working on, the progress and if there are issues, so called roadblocks.  The updates were discussed offline with all parties involved.

All of the feature teams had a product owner who was responsible for prioritizing the work load, distributing work for developers/designers/quality assurance staffs plus keeping track of workflow to ensure the work got done on time. Designers shared opinions in prioritization and estimation and assisted product owners as the designers are stronger in the area of application design while product owners’ expertise is on project management and business analysis.

Occasionally the design team had a chance to have face to face conversations so that the designer can share the best practices in application usage with the clients in order to show their actual work flow.

Learning

The most important key is to understand the users about who we are designing for. Collaboration with product owner, UX and developers are equally important. Feedback from users are important on the other hand we can’t always comprehend everything after a one time feedback. Legitimate prioritization with the right execution are the key.

Final Design