Project brief
Vaisala produces high quality, high precision measurement devices and software for a wide variety of industries. One of their more popular products, viewLinc, which provides Temperature, Humidity and C02 monitoring for highly regulated industrial applications was in need of modernization. Vaisala wanted to use the opportunity to rebuild the software from the ground up.
The goals of viewLinc Cloud are to become a more flexible, scalable, cloud based version of their software. This way, we could offer the product to many smaller organizations that do not have the IT infrastructure to securely host their own data. At the same time, we wanted to build a system that was more intuitive and quick to use and maintain.
Discovery
Before we started drafting wireframes, we conducted a series of workshops with stakeholders, current customers and our service team in which each workshop group identified types of users who would be interacting with the software. These user types were turned into draft personas and compared across workshop groups.
Many similarities became apparent, so I grouped similar characters into six archetypal user personas. Each persona has unique priorities and challenges, while
User Journey mapping
We then put all of our personas onto a Miro board and mapped out user journeys for each one of them. We noted potential question, thoughts, pain points, opportunities and actions made at each stage.
Two main story lines emerged from this process in which each persona took part: that of the large and small business. More than businesses in different industries, we found that size was the defining factor for who will be participating in the on boarding process, and what that process will look like.
IA and feature development
The detailed user stories allowed us to map necessary features and then sort them into an initial architecture. This was one of the big benefits of getting to build this software from scratch, as could re-organize many of the features of the old system into more intuitive categories, as well as eliminate redundant features.
UI Examples
Each main page follows the same layout pattern: Primary navigation on the left, a searchable list of content in the middle, and selected content on the right.
Updating the Design system
During development, Vaisala updated it’s branding and design system. I was excited to get the chance to contribute to the process, as well as re-work the UI.
