explore.
How can we improve our design system?
Overview
The first release of Informatica’s Droplet Design System was fast, furious, and full of issues as we learned to build components. We needed to improve it and make it more useful for the people using it.
1/ User Persona
Who is using the design system? UX product designers are the top users, with a few product developers. Let’s first focus on making it more useful for UX product designers.
2/ User Research
Let’s do some user research! I conducted in-depth interviews with multiple UX product designers from various product teams. I also created a lightweight survey for the whole UX design team to provide input.
3/ Stack Ranking
We can’t fix everything in the second release, but let’s focus on easy wins and essential improvements. I compiled, sorted, and ranked the problems using InVision Freehand.
4/ Brainstorming
I then held an online workshop with the design system team to brainstorm solutions to the top problems.
5/ Action Plan
Post workshop, I created a roadmap to get us to Release 2 of the Droplets Design System.
6/ Outcome
The design system team got to work, and Release 2 of the Droplets Design System not only had a new visual language, it significantly improved the ability of the UX product design teams to design new features and products easily.
Let’s help the user understand their customers better.
Overview
Informatica Customer 360 is a 360-degree view of an enterprise’s customer data. With improved data ingestion, how could we improve the design of the C360 interactive relationship visualization providing additional information and allowing the user to gain more visibility into their customer’s relationships?
Design Hypotheses
Visual illustration of product relationships and simplified assortment management can improve the user’s understanding of the data. The human brain can more easily consume and relate images than text.
1/ Customer Profile
We knew who our users were. We wanted to understand the customer and the data related to customers and what data was relevant to display to the user.
2/ Sketching
Working with another designer, we brainstormed and sketched ideas to improve the UI and add more information to a complex visualization.
3/ Wireframing
We wireframed out a few concepts to review with stakeholders and test with a small internal user group that uses the C360 product.
4/ Prototyping
After multiple design reviews, we created a final prototype to test with various customers. We involved our team of researchers, created a test case together, and with the results, we made final tweaks to the design.
5/ Specifications
After the final design was approved, I created a detailed specification for the developers to build the new and improved network relationship visualization.
6/ Outcome
The final design was released mid-2022, and the improvements were well received. The sales team provided initial feedback that customers were very receptive to getting an expanded view of their customers and pivoting to cater to their needs. User quote: “One of the highlights is the presentation of product relationships as a graph. Users now have the option to visualize their products to be managed within the context of their relationship.”
How can we visually represent AI?
Overview
As we moved the Informatica products to the cloud, we could empower the software with artificial intelligence and machine learning. How do we communicate to the user that the algorithms are at work for them? Is it visual or textual? Do we even need to? If it is visual, what would that look like? My team set about exploring.
1/ Competitive Landscape
What were other products doing, and how were they visually representing their AI? Was it branded? I researched other companies creating AI brands and using them in their UIs. I made a competitive landscape the team could reference.
2/ Project Brief
Working with the design director and project managers, we defined some parameters of the project, but ultimately this was an exploration, so we kept it reasonably open to discovery and new ideas.
3/ Idea Exploration
I and two other designers spent a week exploring ideas. From sound waves to string theory, we explored a wide range of creative and conceptual ideas.
4/ Concept Refinement
After multiple design reviews, we each narrowed down our concepts to one idea and began refining it and adding it to the product UI.
5/ Prototype Presentation
We created interactive prototypes to present our ideas to the design team and product PMs.
6/ Outcome
The project stakeholders reacted positively to the explorations and appreciated the deep dive into visualizing artificial intelligence. However, eight months later, we felt the right direction was to simplify AI in the user interface. This exploration though was an invaluable creative endeavor by our team that we used internally for reference.