Network Operations Centre is One Stop place for E2E Event Management. Operations center is an application to systematically manage network capacity, outage and service restoration. NOC application helps technicians track real time disaster and emergency events, including but not limited to, tornadoes, earthquakes, flooding, freezes and other events that cause Telecom network cell outages. When these types of events occur, the outages are tracked within this system. NOC is a data intensive web application mainly used by the field technicians and management.

Product Designer

Product Strategy, User Research, Analysis, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Testing, Team Management

September 2019 - Jan 2020

• Web application is a data intensive with lots of grids and maps, which takes good amount of time to load on the web pages
• Ask was to provide a very minimal information, which has to be derived from a data table with 60 columns
• Interface should be user friendly compared to the current web application
• Data heavy UI causing cognitive overload
• Visual imbalance & clutter

Understanding Users and their Problems

During the research phase, I sought to understand the current Network Operations Centre application. I partnered with a product manager and a business analyst to explore how the users use this application in a day to day basis. The solution architects were a good source for collecting the pain points since they have closer view of the application.

As part of this MVP, focus was on to develop basic features, and there were only 2 user types i.e. -

1. Management - Management needs only the synopsis
2. Field Technicians - Need to fill certain info and also check a particular device or switch in their area.

My intention for the research phase was to uncover the needs and frustrations of the target users which will help me to better understand how to appeal to them. During this phase I tried to understand the user’s demographics, opportunities and challenges related to the Operations Centre. Collected the required information to understand the important features of the application and the user expectation.

Empathy is the core of understanding the right problems to the right audience.

Research Goals

• Define user’s common behavior while using the web application
• Define user’s common behavior while using any iPad apps
• Determine what users like and dislike about both web and mobile apps

In order to design an app with a great user experience, I had to first identify the needs of the target audience. To better understand the perspective of users, I conducted a combination of Remote Usability Testing through WebEx sessions & User Interviews with the actual users of the application, 10 men (from different Operations Centre locations in the US on different job roles who use OC application) aged between 25 and 56 years old to understand about their experiences and habits.

Outcome of the Usability Testing & User Interviews

• Users were experienced enough to toggle 100s of columns on the web application, hoveverv loading speed of the pages made them frustrated
• Users showed interest to have an app which can be accessed on the go

After completing the interviews, I gathered all the responses on to sticky notes, we all (designers, researchers, product owners, solution architects, and engineering manager)i began to cluster them based on the topic. Clustering interview responses allowed us to discover trends and patterns from which insights could be constructed. We identified several user needs. i.e.

1. Loading of page should be faster
2. Important information should be displayed upfront
3. Mobile app would be preferred, which can be carried anywhere and be accessed on the move
4. Dashboard showing the current statusof the OC
5. UI should be clutter free and a task should be completed with minimum clicks

Personas

Now that I had empathized with the target used and identified their needs, I needed to define the solution. I reflected on the business goals, user goals and technical considerations to find a happy medium for all stakeholders. Once I had identified the common goals, I could sort features as per the importance.

I began the process of wire framing with sketches of variations for the iPad. During this process, I thought about how the layout and content could be structured to satisfy user and business goals in a technically feasible way. The sketch I chose served as a guide for my digital wireframes.

Actual screens of the NOC Web Application

Paper Sketches - While the feedback was mostly positive from participants, the prototype is far from perfect. I then went on creating the rest of the pages of the prototype. I continued the iterative cycle of testing and updating the prototype.

The Solution we provided -

1. Reduced cognitive load by showing status of every location with legends in the map
2. Intuitive UI and Iconography helped in quick decision making
3. Ease of Access made performing actions available at a glance without much search efforts
4. User Persona Analysis helped in reducing the multiple clicks for completing a task

The Remote usability testing I initially conducted were run again with the new app. Feedback this time was much more positive!

Task Completion Success Rate = 94%
Average Time to complete Task = 15.24 secs
Perceived Ease of User Average Rating = 9.30

iPad app brought lot of accolades not just from the client but from the real time users of the app! Happy customer, which resulted in long term deal for this project.

Empathize
Empathy is one of the core elements of the design process. Spend as much time you could to understand the user’s perspective and context in and out.

Get Your Design Critiqued With As Many As You Can
Always welcome the stakeholders to join the brainstorming sessions. This way you can understand different perspectives like product owners, product managers, solution architects etc. Design critique is also a powerful way getting the feedbacks and chance to unveil few points that you have never even thought of them.

Use a Metric To Test Your Success
For designs its hard to judge if the proposed designs work well in the real world. Also, it is not just about the numbers. Setting up a framework helps in exploring the problems in the right way and eventually leads you to an accurate outcome.