Project Type

Product design for Mercedes Benz leadership team

Contribution

User Research
Stakeholder interview
Rapid prototyping and design sprint
High-fidelity prototype

My role

UX Researcher
UI Designer
UI Developer (Front-end)

Outcome

Improved efficiency
Better meeting data management and tracking

Overview

What is Elite web application is about?

Elite is an enterprise app designed for the leadership team in Mercedes Benz. It’s a productivity app that helps the leadership team to organize meeting discussions and decisions derived from those meetings. This app also empowers the team to track any decision and tasks derived from these discussions.

How critical is this application?

The team wastes an incredible amount of time in switching between a variety of topic discussions and loses track of the decisions and tasks derived from these discussions. There wasn't a proper tool for the team to document these activities. So we decided to build a new application to meet these requirements along with a seamless integration of the existing communication tools.

The Problem

The leadership team wastes a good amount of time in switching between a variety of topic discussions and loses track of the decisions and tasks derived from these discussions. There wasn't a proper tool for the team to document these activities. Team was relaying on Skype for all of their communications and remote meetings, the need of tracking these discussions and decisions was very important for the business. So we decided to build a new application to meet these requirements along with a seamless integration of the existing tool Skype.

How did I approached it?

It always starts with the users.

The design process

Five days of cross team collaboration

Map it out: This is a brand new concept so there is no current experience to map out. The team starts by mapping out the ideal user experience. We take the map and run it past internal experts and users to see if we are close to hitting the mark.

Expert Sessions: We have already have done some upfront User Research which has given us a good place to start. We bring in internal experts and/or current users to answer some questions that are still outstanding. We run them through the new journey map to validate if we are heading in the right direction.

How Might We: These are questions that we have about solving problems Instead of stating the problem, turning the problem into a question can help facilitate ideation.We document these on the map so we make sure we solve them along the way.

Design sprints are great!

Facilitated Design Sprint
I facilitated a 5 day long design sprint. The Designers, Product Manager, Developers, Internal SMEs and Users combine forces in a room continued for five days.

First we make sure we are all understanding the problem correctly. Using research, various
thought evoking tools, communication and understanding we have a prototyped concept at the end of day 4. Now we can better communicate with leadership to see if the concept will solve the business needs and thus getting a budget for further development of this product.

Designed
I have conceptualized the solution and built the prototype in order to tell the story. I also ran the concept through some initial user testing.

Pitched the concept to get Executive buy in
This was a very large concept that has been talked about for years. The solution will benefit the leadership team to better organize and track discussions and decisions.

The Solution

The goal was to build a system that can take a complex topic and break it down into pieces that are easily understandable. It works a bit like an org chart with the key decision in the center with links to related topics. When you have individual tasks and decisions, it is easier to see how they roll up into an overall decision.

I have tried to make the transaction details transparent for the user and also included the conversion and other charges clearly in the screen. Also, modified the interface to show both options like paying in home or local currency and their respective charges to help the user make decisions confidently at the time of payment.