COMPANY https://www.secureworks.com/ Secureworks is a cybersecurity company that specializes in providing advanced threat detection, managed security services, and cybersecurity consulting to organizations worldwide.
PROBLEM
Taegis is the main Secureworks SaaS cybersecurity platform. Customers who use the platform need a mobile version of the platform to provide ‘on-the-go access’ to critical threat information and response capabilities.
STRATEGY
To meet customers’ demands, a compressed timeline for the development of a mobile platform forced the UX design and research processes to be carried out concurrently with UI engineering efforts.
The objective was to gain a comprehensive understanding of user preferences and expectations for a mobile platform, as well as its intended usage. This necessitated the creation of iterative prototyping to facilitate the research process.
SOLUTION
Approximately 20 one-on-one user testing sessions were conducted, the insights from which played a pivotal role in shaping the overall user experience of the mobile design. These user-centric iterations and testing sessions ensured that the resulting product not only met the technical requirements but also delivered a user-friendly and intuitive mobile platform that aligns with user needs in recording breaking time.
RESULTS
The research not only instilled confidence in the accuracy of the UX designs but also led to crucial revelations. Some initially scheduled features, which did not align with user preferences, were reconsidered, while other features slated for a later development phase were promptly integrated into the current release.
Furthermore, a significant design revelation emerged from the research – the planned responsive tables, although initially envisioned, were found to be cumbersome by users. Consequently, a more user-friendly solution in the form of ‘expandable cards' was designed to replace the tables.
COMPANY www.ventana.com
Ventana is a division of Roche and is a global leader in tissue diagnostics. It develops, manufactures, and markets instrument reagent systems that automate tissue and slide staining.
PROBLEM
The process and medical lab software at Ventana Medical systems that analyzed, discovered and delivered cancer tissue biopsies was outdated and prone to human error. Because lives were at stake, there was an urgent need to redesign the experience and workplace for lab employees that supported task-based actions, improved accuracy of lab results, sped time to completion, and drove down costs.
STRATEGY
Create an end-to-end product and process workflow that was automated, streamlined, and provided increased productivity and patient safety gains. Lean Six Sigma principles were used to identify workflow benefits.
SOLUTION
By integrating information flow with lab work, Ventana created a first of its kind workflow solution. It allows labs a complete chain of custody based on lean integrated processes, and full visibility into lab operations any time, from anywhere.
RESULTS
This comprehensive solution for cancer tissue testing included hardware, software and workflow consulting that virtually eliminated errors with a “one label, one time” identification system that included barcode scanners. A dashboard that delivered anytime insight into lab performance identified opportunities to improve workflow, quality, staffing and efficiency.
CORE TEAM
Simon Choi, UI Lead
Terri Ducay, Project Director, UX Design/Research
COMPANY https://ricoh-usa.com/en/Industries/Healthcare
A global leader in cancer tissue diagnostics. The company develops, manufactures, and markets instrument reagent systems that automate tissue and slide staining in anatomic pathology laboratories.
PROBLEM
To meet the demand for a connected world, technology developed by Ricoh’s medical division, E-Ink, allowed hospital personnel the opportunity to capture, share and retrieve medical information in new ways. Although the technology of the eQuill was superior to anything on the market, users found it difficult and impractical to use, which resulted in low sales.
STRATEGY
Incorporate user-centered approaches using expert interviews, observations, and evaluations to create an easy-to-use, full-featured technology implementation that had both emotional depth and meaning to intended users.
SOLUTION
Design for understanding and ease of use. By using an Agile development process incorporating two-weeks sprints we created a successful minimal viable product (MVP). Based on user needs for a simple, easy-to-use tool we simplified navigation for large file management, implemented file synchronization and migration, smooth document navigation and page transitions, and creation of a nomenclature which was clear and exact.
RESULTS
Ricoh successfully rolled out a new version of eQuill for the enterprise market based on a 9.7” e-ink screen, with a stylus, Wifi, 5MP camera, and onboard microphone. Originally created for the medical market, the all-in-one document management solution was approved by the FCC and has since spread to other industries needing on-the-go document management needs.
CORE TEAM
Jonathan Carpenter, Project Director
Ben Sebby, UI Design Lead
Terri Ducay, UX Design Lead
COMPANY www.ea.com
Pogo.com, owned by Electronic Arts, is a free online gaming website that offers over 100 casual games from brands like Hasbro and PopCap Games. It offers a variety of care and board games like First Class Solitaire and Monopoly to puzzle, sports and word games like Scrabble.
PROBLEM
Encourage a new generation of mostly female game players—who had thus far felt ignored by the gaming industry—to sign up for Club Pogo, a paid subscription service, that hosts over 100 online, card, and board games. For this audience, game play wasn’t always about winning. Research revealed it was a way to socialize, de-stress, and connect to a community.
STRATEGY
Communicate the offer of premium benefits for an audience of women including a game play environment uninterrupted by advertising.
SOLUTION
• Begin by understanding the needs, behaviors, and motivations of this new, untapped audience.
• Conduct fast prototyping to understand where a potential subscriber was in the gaming process.
• Define a level of “premium benefits” for new, mostly female subscribers.
• Create new personas to accommodate a female audience which where distributed to the entire development team.
• Stage a series of design workshops to ensure everyone understood the personas.
• Build a subscription service that provided value for its members, along a spectrum of emotional, social, and game-play benefits.
RESULTS
Revenue at Pogo.com grew from $30M to $100 M in 5 years.
CORE TEAM
Guillaume Thoreau, UX Design Lead
Michael Humphries, UX Mobile Design Lead
Laura Naylor, Research Lead
Terri Ducay, Design Director
COMPANY www.Cengage.com
Cengage Learning is the third largest educational publisher worldwide, providing content, technology, and services for the K-12, higher education, and professional markets to 19.2 million customers in more than 20 countries.
PROBLEM
In the face of rapid change sweeping higher education, the educational publishing business is struggling to stay up to date. To compound the problem Cengage found itself with legacy software partially due to its switch from print to digital publishing. Traditionally educational companies had focused on the needs of the instructor and of the higher educational institutions. Because instructors controlled the purchasing power student needs were never considered in the development of products or services.
STRATEGY
Instead of focusing on the instructor and institutions, Cengage made a big change in deciding to focus on the student. Based on a user-centered design approach Cengage undertook to understand the world the student lived in, and then design delightful and engaging products for them.
SOLUTION
User research uncovered several factors that led to the creation of MyCengage, a one-stop educational services portal for students and instructors alike. Adjunct instructors, who are an increasing part of the higher education workforce, now had an opportunity to assign materials to support classroom instruction. And students had a single online destination to purchase and download digital textbooks they needed, as well as material focusing on particular subject areas like careers.
RESULTS
Using an Agile development process driven by a design thinking approach, MyCengage was created as a one-stop portal that allowed students and instructors to personalize the site to meet their needs. Instructors received ‘on the go’ information to help students stay engaged with classroom learning. Built-in intelligence enabled the site to offer customized courseware based on the student’s class enrollment, grades, and career path. Students, who were used to consuming information on the go, now had an easy-to-use platform that delivered the education material they needed, which they could purchase or rent, when and where they wanted it.
COMPANY http://www.cengage.com/students/21voices/
Cengage Learning is the third largest educational publisher worldwide, providing content, technology, and services for the K-12, higher education, and professional markets to 19.2 million customers in more than 20 countries.
PROBLEM
Higher education faces tough issues today: rising tuition, increases in student debt, a changing demographic that makes it almost impossible for working students to graduate in four years, and an ongoing search for relevance in which employers are asking for a trained workforce. Despite these well-known problems, not much was know about the end-to-end lives of students, and what new products and services they needed to succeed.
STRATEGY
Research deep and broad. A four-year longitudinal project, named 21 Voices, was created to learn who today’s college students are, what their needs include, and how Cengage Learning can support those needs.
SOLUTION
Two years in the making, a C-Level report identified five opportunities that included making classroom experiences more relevant and the need for life long learning following graduation. While the report exposed shared needs, it also uncovered new market segments, for Cengage to offer products and services to support new behaviors.
RESULTS Based on this report Cengage launched a $500 million program to exploit the opportunities uncovered by 21 Voices.
COMPANY https://www.krungsri.com/
Krungsri is the fifth largest bank in Thailand in terms of assets, loans, and deposits, with headquarters in Bangkok.
PROBLEM
The consumer credit division of the bank has been experiencing suboptimal performance and was seeking ways to boost the utilization of credit cards among its clientele. To achieve this objective, a fundamental shift in the perception of acquiring credit was deemed necessary. To facilitate this transformation, the bank recognized the imperative of gaining a comprehensive understanding of its customer base as the initial step.
STRATEGY
In a dynamic two-day workshop, we gathered professionals from the bank's credit divisions with a singular goal: to breathe life into customer stories, ignite innovation, and pave the way for innovative design solutions for new products and services.
Our journey commenced with exploring customer needs and the challenges they grapple with daily.
From there, we embarked on engineering user-centric solutions to meet these demands effectively.
SOLUTION
The workshop divided participants into agile teams of five, each tasked with unraveling a distinct customer persona.
Each team took on the role of both designers and performers. They crafted solutions and then enacted them as if performing on a theater stage.
Judges from the executive team evaluated the presentations, and the victorious team not only received recognition but also secured the commitment that their work would transition into a tangible project, ensuring its continuity beyond the workshop's conclusion.
RESULTS
Understanding consumers' requirements for credit cards yielded significant insights.
Notably, the findings highlighted that consumers often sought the convenience of using a credit card for routine expenses, such as bi-weekly hair salon visits and grocery shopping. While these transactions individually represented modest sums, the workshop emphasized the importance of recognizing the cumulative effect. Over time, the convenience of incorporating credit cards into daily life could lead to substantial spending patterns, thereby underscoring the potential value for the bank in addressing these needs.
COMPANY www.Cengage.com
Cengage Learning is the third largest educational publisher worldwide, providing content, technology, and services for the K-12, higher education, and professional markets to 19.2 million customers in more than 20 countries.
PROBLEM
Cengage was stuck in the print era. To compete in the new world of digital publishing they needed to adopt the methods and culture of a technology company.
STRATEGY
Work closely with business and technology teams to identify high impact products, then apply design thinking methodology to develop new classroom technology for changing educational markets.
SOLUTION
Re-imagine the educational journey of a working adult student in higher education. Instead of asking busy, working students to go to the library, we built a suite of responsive design products into a learning resource center, delivering educational modules, videos and quizzes to time-constrained students’ mobile phones.
RESULTS
First quarter product release resulted in $10.2M annual additional net revenue.
COMPANY www.nokia.com
Finnish multinational communications and information technology company. Since the sale of its mobile phone business, Nokia has begun to focus more extensively on its telecommunications infrastructure business, virtual reality, and digital health.
PROBLEM
Engineers had created the use of Near Field Technology that enabled wireless communication between two electronic devices when they are close to each other. The problem was users didn’t know about it, and when they did they didn’t know how to use it.
STRATEGY
To ensure Nokia’s embedded technology was easy and flexible to use, with a zero learning curve, we conducted user-testing research that explored how consumers actually used their devices to connect to each other.
SOLUTION
User testing revealed consumer misperceptions around near field technology, and a confusing user experience that did not support the needs of the users. Based on the findings revealed in user testing, device-specific onscreen graphics were created to make the user experience consistent, reliable, and dead-simple.
RESULTS
• New graphics and educational stickers explained how to use NFC.
• A simplified user interface enabled consumers to instantly add a wi-fi network, exchange digital business cards, launch a website URL, and among other tasks.
COMPANY IQMax.com
IQMax is a privately held corporation and an early pioneer in the field of mobile healthcare solutions for healthcare providers and facilities.
PROBLEM
In health care the promise of a single, unified digital patient health record is still a long way off. To make effective, accurate decisions at the point of care, nurses and physicians need immediate access to patient data no matter where it resides.
STRATEGY
Build a mobile solution to deliver the ‘correct amount’ of information needed by a medical professional, whether a quick scan for a checkup by a nurse, or the examination of lab results for a physician.
SOLUTION
Developed a data virtualization platform and mobile application suite that enables healthcare facilities to consolidate vast amounts of data from disparate sources and connect it to health care administrators, physicians and nurses.
RESULTS
Created IQMAx mobile application for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile Device. Feature set includes:
• Comprehensive system manager for greater administrative visibility and control
• Detailed, configurable dashboard for system administrators to view system status in real-time
• Allows collaboration and shared information between staff
• Filtering options enable users to see just the critical information they require at the maximum moment of need.
CORE TEAM
Thai Lao, UX Lead
Edward Lee, UI Lead
Terri Ducay, Project Director
COMPANY www.belkin.com
Belkin specializes in connectivity devices. It is a company driven by creating products that help people realize the power of technology and make people’s lives better, easier and more fulfilling.
PROBLEM
How to create a viable market for Belkins’ products in a market where the daily wage is $2 a day. More than 40% of the world population lives on less than US$2 per day. Our target was the rural farming areas in India—an environment where poor roads, poverty, and energy blackouts limit educational opportunities for children. In rural schools where connection to the electrical grid was haphazard at best, dangerous at worst, Belkin's challenge was to provide a safe, inexpensive connectivity solution for the One Laptop Per Child project.
STRATEGY
As Belkins’ First Entrepreneur in Residence, hired specifically to work on Emerging Markets, I looked first at affordability, scalability, appropriate use, and then secondarily at technology. To bring our strategy to life quickly our team used a design thinking approach to build rapid prototypes that enabled users to see and touch the solution and understand the opportunity.
SOLUTION
A portable power surge device that plugs into a single electrical outlet and connects up to five laptops, preventing electrocution of children and destruction of their computers. To build a viable solution and bring it to market required partnering with outside organizations, companies, schools and NGOs, including Microsoft Labs, MIT, and SEWA (Self Employed Women's Association headquartered in Ahmadabad, India). Working with the One Laptop Per Child project, we provided a viable energy solution so students in classrooms could safely power their laptop.
RESULT
Successfully brought to market a low-cost, rugged and conneted laptop with the goal of providing one for each child who otherwise could not afford a computer.
CORE TEAM
Mark Reynoso, Belkin CEO
Joshua Seal, Product Designer
Terri Ducay, Research
COMPANY www.VMware.com
VMWare is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility that provides cloud and virtualization software and services. Its drive to digital domination is based on mobility solutions that transform the way the world does business. Remote user research was conducted in six European countries.
PROBLEM
The countries of Europe share a common currency. To determine if VMWare Switch (software that enabled a single mobile phone to handle both business and personal needs) could extend a single design solution across Europe, the company needed remote user research.
STRATEGY
First conduct user research to specify the core feature set. Then determine if different European markets were large enough to support specific features.
SOLUTION
Conducting user research across six European countries revealed an underlying need for shared features, but major differences in how these features were used in context across time, function, and audience. Instead of segregating business and personal life on their mobiles, users wanted a single, simple, unified view of their lives. This resulted in a major breakthrough in how to think about developing a mobile feature set. The outcome was software that made it simpler for real users to unify their business activities and personal needs on a single handset.
RESULT
A simplified user set, a streamlined development process, and a faster launch of the product across Europe.
CORE TEAM
Simon Choi, UI Design Lead
Terri Ducay, Research & UX Design Lead
COMPANY https://en.sappraiwan.com/
Sappraiwan's Elephant Sanctuary, Resort, and Foundation is a sustainable organization that creates value for all stakeholders, including animals, plants, insects, humans, and Earth. We strive to give guests a memorable experience by connecting them with animals, including elephants, sustainable farming methods, and local village culture. We demonstrate how humans can live in harmony with nature and thrive. Local communities participate in this endeavor for Sappraiwan’s long-term sustainable and viable future while creating a model framework for how nature and humans can cohabit successfully.
PROBLEM
The situation at hand posed a significant challenge, wherein both the hotel and the elephant sanctuary were facing financial losses, a tarnished reputation, and, most critically, a deteriorating state of the sanctuary's elephant health due to inadequate understanding and outdated practices regarding elephant care.
STRATEGY
The strategy devised to achieve the objectives of enhanced profitability, reputation, and the well-being of the elephants encompassed a multifaceted research-driven approach. This approach entailed a thorough examination of various market opportunities, including:
Hospitality and Travel Trends Analysis:
A comprehensive study of prevailing hospitality and travel trends in East Asia and global contexts was undertaken. This research aimed to identify emerging patterns in guest preferences, travel behavior, and cultural dynamics that could be leveraged to attract a broader clientele.
Digital Nomad and Ethical Sustainability Trends Exploration:
In response to the evolving landscape of the hospitality industry, particular attention was devoted to investigating the growing segment of digital nomads and their preferences for ethical and sustainable accommodation options.
Diversification of Revenue Streams:
A critical aspect of the strategy was to identify and implement new sources of revenue that catered to high-income markets. This involved evaluating opportunities such as exclusive experiences, eco-tourism packages, and wellness offerings to diversify income streams.
Adherence to Ethical Animal Standards:
In tandem with these market-oriented efforts, a dedicated initiative was launched to understand and implement modern ethical standards for captive wildlife, particularly in the context of the elephant sanctuary. This involved rigorous research and compliance measures to ensure the well-being and ethical treatment of the sanctuary's elephant population.
SOLUTION
A comprehensive strategy, driven by research and a commitment to ethical standards, was designed to achieve a multifaceted transformation to enhance the hotel's reputation and establish a sustainable and ethically compliant elephant sanctuary. The key solutions implemented included:
Room and Service Upgrades: The hotel underwent a significant overhaul to cater to the evolving needs and preferences of discerning guests. This encompassed modernizing the rooms and services to provide an elevated guest experience aligned with contemporary hospitality trends.
Targeting High-Income Markets: The marketing efforts were strategically redirected towards high-income markets in urban centers such as Bangkok and Singapore. This approach aimed to tap into a more affluent clientele who sought premium and sustainable hospitality experiences.
Educational Programs: Educational programs were developed to bridge the gap between conservation efforts and public awareness. These programs highlighted the sanctuary's commitment to ethical elephant care and educated students and visitors about the elephants' lifestyles, habitats, and the importance of conservation.
RESULTS
The strategy successfully aligned the business with evolving market demands and ethical imperatives through planned solutions. It not only improved financial performance and reputation but also played a pivotal role in creating a sustainable sanctuary that met modern ethical standards for the welfare of the elephants, effectively merging profitability with ethical responsibility.
COMPANY www.dell.com/learn/us/en/vn/secure/acq-quest
Quest Software offers application, cloud and database managment. It has since been acquired by Dell. Quest develops and supports software used in a variety of industries to simplify IT management, investing in virtualization, cloud automation and backup and recovery. It's software manages, monitors for protection against system failures.
PROBLEM
In the enterprise software-selling scenario, the buyers are not the users. This can lead to an emphasis on full-featured software packages that in theory get the job done, but in reality are extremely difficult to use. Quests’ software applications, cloud and database management tools were dated, and difficult to use. The steep learning curve and complexity of the legacy enterprise user interface lead to a growing incident of errors and loss of sales.
STRATEGY
Focus on user experience instead of feature development. With clear input from Quest’s CEO, we took our design cues from everyday software experiences such as gaming, with flat learning curves and feedback that immediately rewarded the end user.
SOLUTION
Overhaul the UX and UI. We created a three-year plan beginning with a redesign of the backend and frontend systems. A diverse group of designers, engineers, social scientists, and MBA’s helped shape this product and it’s roadmap, using a dashboard that enabled team members to view the project at a high level or zoom into specific data points as needed.
RESULTS
Feedback from users was extremely high which resulted in quicker learning curves for new employees, lower turnover, and the ability to serve up robust data sets in context. Thanks in part to the redesign and delivery of Quest’s end-to-end client facing solutions, the company was acquired by Dell for $2.4 billion.
CORE TEAM
Simon Choi, UI Design Lead
Terri Ducay, Research & UX Design Lead
COMPANY www.nike.com
A multinational company that is engaged in the design, development, manufacturing and worldwide marketing and sales of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services.
PROBLEM
Nike’s Research Lab collects a mountain of data as they quantify athletes’ movements, the environments they play in, and the products they use. To make that information useful as they developed training software that tracked eye movement and correlated that to body kinematics, they needed contextual research to understand how athletes, train, live, and think about sport.
STRATEGY
To ensure new technologies from the lab bench could actually inform specific products dedicated to teenage athletes, we conducted a research project that created a 360° view of an athlete’s attitudes, behaviors, training and motivation.
SOLUTION
Home visits combined with interviews about health, school and non-sport activities where gathered, with a focus on how athletes train, their schedules, objectives, injuries, motivation, and body measurements. Research uncovered Nike had a great opportunity to create technically advanced eye wear that could improve training.
RESULTS
The information gathered provided Nike with the insights they needed to pursue the development of “smart glasses” that could track eye movement, combine it with body movement, and physiological data to enhance hand-eye coordination and accelerate athletic performance.
CORE TEAM
Steve Diller, Project Lead
Terri Ducay, Design and Research
The diagram shown on this page was created by Charles and Ray Eames in 1969 to illustrate the dynamic and fluid state of how designers could employ the new field of “Design Thinking” to understand users, and how design applies it’s purpose. While the Eames’ may have been the first to articulate how designers can use design thinking to drive to the soul of a problem, to understand the fluid marketplace methods, tools and techniques are used to accelerate complex problem-solving.
VISUALIZATION METHODS
The purpose of visualization is the communication of data, turning that data into information and then into knowledge. When data comes from an abstract source that is difficult to grasp, Visualization transforms the invisible to the visible. Clients include: The Gap, MSFT
VISUAL MODELING
Visual modeling creates a vehicle for the data to take shape, in order to provide a way to learn something about the data and to see new information in a familiar way. In some ways it is very much like prototyping, except here the element used is data. Clients include: MSFT, HP
SEMIOTICS
An old science but somewhat new to the design field is the study of signs and meaning-making. Semiotics is closely related to linguistics, but instead of words, it explores the study of signs and symbols and it’s role in communicating. It is used to interpret culture through visual language. Clients include: Nestle, HP
ASSUMPTIVE PERSONAS
The role of an Assumptive Persona is to enable a business to think about their business goals in a customer-centric manner. In many cases, a company will not have market segmentation of their product or service users, which is where personas can be especially revealing. Clients include: Cengage, Intel
INTERNAL AUDIENCES
The use of personas in design projects is commonplace, but do we designers create personas of our clients? For a design culture to take hold within a company, it is important to understand who will use the products, processes and information we create. Creating personas for internal stakeholders can ensure we deliver the information in a way they need and understand.
COMPANY www.apple.com
PROBLEM
Apple launched with breakthrough hardware that was intuitive and easy to use. But computers without software were only half the equation. To compete in the home office environment they needed to ensure their suite of freestanding productivity products was equally easy to use.
STRATEGY
Build one of the first UX/UI/Research Design teams in the country to focus solely on interface design and ease of use for software products.
SOLUTION
The Claris Works suite of software (later renamed Apple Works) is a bundled suite of integrated products comprising word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software all designed to work together using the same easy to understand interface.
RESULTS
ClarisWorks became one of the most widely used software applications for the home office, selling over 35,000 copies in the first three weeks of launch. Claris HomePage won numerous awards for it's clean and easy to use interface.
CORE TEAM
Elissa Darnell, Research Lead
Dave Cortright, UX Design Lead
Philip Haine, UX Design Lead
Leslie Vaughn, UI Design lead
Terri Ducay, UX, UI, & Research Manager