Depot Charging Solution | Wesley van den Brink

This is a NDA protected project. It's impossible for me to extensively document it here. I would like to share with you the cooperation, the process, a summery of activities and some learnings. Interested in more? Please feel free to get in touch.

ROLE

BA / UX Designer

TIMELINE

Three months

company

scrum TEAM

Person A - Product Owner
Person B - Business Analyst
Person C - Scrum Master
‍Person D - IT Architect
‍Person E - IT Developer
‍Person F - IT Developer
‍Person G - Front-end Developer
‍Person H - Front-end Developer
Wesley van den Brink - BA / UX Designer

Context

I've been working on the development of the Depot Charging Solution MVP for three months. The focus as a team was on the development of the depot / vehicle overview and detail screen. The depot overview screen shows vehicles that are in the depot. Like the actual depot, the overview is shown to the end user on a visual display, so that he can carry out his tasks as easily as possible.

Unfortunately, there was no possibility to test it at an earlier stage with end users. The stakeholders / sales colleagues were very well informed and were able to act as users. The MVP was mainly focussed on four end users. I used their knowledge profusely. This gave me feedback and new insights each Scrum sprint.

In the months I have worked a lot with the different disciplines within a Scrum Team. I supported the Product Owner and Business Analyst in obtaining the insights, wishes, needs and current problems. With the two front-end teammates I talked a lot about the different sketch alternatives and wireframes I made. This has led to valuable discussions and feedback.

The Challenge

depot charging solution

Delivery of the following aspects were considered critical success factors:

Depot layout (lanes, connectors and vehicles combined)
Vehicle positioning and status
Vehicle readiness
Vehicle departure time
Standard vehicle information

Competitive Analysis

Who are the competitors? What products do they offer? How do they market their products? Any demo available? What are there USP's? Just some question within this fase of the project.

In order to obtain information about the competitors in the field of depot charging, together with the Business Analyst I researched their Unique Selling Points and what functionalities, options and packages they offer.

I took this information and inspiration into account in the development of the MVP.

Problem Statement

I worked with the Product Owner and Business Analist to define a clear problem, so the Business Analist and I could discover and explore for which users and business goals we are realising this Depot Charging Solution MVP.

Proto Personas

Together with the Business Analyst, I drew up proto personas based on assumptions / information obtained from the stakeholders. With a collection of heuristics, market research, and intuition presenting an opportunity to articulate the target audience, their needs, and behaviours. The proto personas are the dispatcher en fleet manager. They ultimately represent what we think our users are like.

Dispatcher
Makes sure that vehicles are prepared for their next itinerary, so that chauffeur / drivers can execute their work at best without worrying about the vehicle state.

Fleet Manager
Continuity of the vehicles in the fleet.

User Activities

I obtained the activities from the stakeholders and by looking at vacancies related to the personas. Thanks to these insights, two "user journeys" were set up, which I would later translate to a SpecFlow map in DevOps with the Product Owner and Business Analyst. This includes the creation of epics, features and pbi's.

User Stories

I use Gherkin to create user stories. It is a domain specific language which helps me to describe business behavior without the need to go into detail of implementation. I focus on describing behavior in a scenario. This makes it easier to scan and both the business and the IT department feel involved. In addition, the steps in the scenario can be better maintained and reused. This will prevent problems with a new user interface.

Sketching

I can place any image here, because it's all faded out, but believe me: I love sketching so much. This puts me in direct contact with my team in discussions and feedback sessions. I have held both individual and a lot of group sketching sessions. I was taking the lead and responsible for this. I appreciate everyone's opinion and insights by conducting these sessions.

Wireframes & Prototypes

wireframes

Every sprint I realised wireframes & prototypes to share and contribute to the development of the application. During this realisation I worked closely together with the Frontend team. At the same time they were busy setting up the application components in React.

I first started to create low-fidelity designs based on a feature - which was divided into PBIs. After presenting my work during the Sprint Review sessions, I was able to start the next sprint on the high-fidelity design. After the first sprint, I worked on both low and high fidelity designs.

In a short period of time I realized a large range of high-fidelity designs. This kept my Development team supplied.

Learnings & Insights

the 4-point grid system

I can use my design eye to bump into a few elements here and there, but I can't rely on a team of developers sharing the same vision. Without a system to define the spatial relationships of my elements, it is difficult to create consistency. This is an easy system of communication between me and the developers I worked with. There is no fussing over pixels and at the end there is a good experience for everyone.

rapid prototyping

I'm quite used to this way of working. Because of the deadline and time pressure attached to this project, this method was very effective and pleasant for everyone. I took responsibility for design choices and was able to explain and substantiate them through rapid development.

At the end of Rapid Prototyping I saw the possibility to present ideas easily and quickly to my team and stakeholders. As a result, the wireframes provided solutions on several occasions.

appreciation

I am more competent than I thought I was. The appreciation in my work from the team, stakeholders and management was amazing. The feeling that I succeeded in being a BA / UX Designer, gave a tremendous boost.

I was told that this had to do with my skills, cooperation and communication. I came up with well-founded choices and was open to feedback. According to my colleagues, this makes the difference between a 'good' and 'bad' designer.