Numerex iManage is a SaaS big data & predictive analytics solution. It allows manufacturing companies to increase visibility in its supply chain by identifying optimal product deployment and leverages that information to provide advanced data analytics.
It manages machine-to-machine (M2M) by tracking devices with location reporting by wireless network connectivity and a cloud-based application (IoT).
NUMEREX - iManage
Industry-leading manufacturing companies engage multiple suppliers to regularly ship containers to various locations. In order to keep the supply chain working smoothly and without delays, Numerex iManage places tracking devices on shipping containers to collect data from their locations, estimate delivery times, set alerts for supply-chain delays, and generate reports.
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
If the supply chain is delayed, product shipments get affected in cascade, causing significant operational and production costs, thus reducing margins and revenue.
iManage allows companies to better allocate resources, increase production efficiency by preventing losses, delays, unnecessary acquisition of inventory, carrying costs, and expediting expenses.
THE GOAL
Numerex tasked my team with designing and developing new features which would allow the cloud-based application to generate real time-reports, alerts, notifications, customized views, and advanced data analytics dashboards that helped managers perform daily tasks better.
STRATEGY & PLANNING
OUR TEAM
MY CORE RESPONSIBILITIES
THE CHALLENGE
1. FINDING THE RIGHT INFORMATION - AT THE RIGHT TIME
The Numerex application grew organically over time, adding new features and sections of the sitemap. This growth was understandable for employees who had been working with the product for several years, but it created a complex learning curve for new employees.
2. DASHBOARDS WITH KEY INFORMATION FOR DECISION MAKING
Creating dashboards with real time data required me to identify what is relevant for each user persona. Understanding user journeys on field to later define what alerts, notifications, and customizations are required for the application to highlight.
ROADMAP
The Project Manager, our Client Stakeholder ,and I had various meetings to define the business goal as well as success indicators, groom the backlog, prioritize tasks, and define the roadmap.
RESEARCH USER PERSONAS
The client stakeholder gathered customer feedback to help me identify the user personas: Logistics Manager and Waypoint Supervisor.
AUDIT USER INTERFACE
Together we mapped on the most common user journeys the top pain points, the type of information highlight each persona required, and the most requested filters and modifications.
KEY LEARNINGS
I identified the clear-cut data needed, requests for easy-to-understand data visualization, highlights alerts, and important messages. Providing this info would facilitate the reduction of costs and overall time spent generating and exporting reports.
By meeting with my dev team they reported the current status of the codebase, feasibility and blockers for new designs. The given architecture of the Numerex did not supported user profiles and permissions.
PROBLEM
We could not scale and offer personalized features without compromising the main navigation.
RESEARCH TECHNIQUES
Working with Numerex presented me with a very complex challenge: understanding the information architecture and how single pieces of data relate to each other within different levels of the sitemap.
How that is used and understood by different users, what are the common complaints per user group and what are the product vision plans to support an architecture that supports strongly for future changes.
To understand what would be the most logical taxonomy for current users I designed a sitemap and architecture research across all levels of the architecture.
KEY LEARNINGS
SITEMAP REDESIGN
I articulated a solution that restructured the whole architecture of the navitagion.
WIREFRAMES
Designing the application wireframes in black and white while using UI templates, allowed me to iterate and quickly validate that the most important pieces of information were present.
FUNCTIONAL PROTOTYPE
As a result of the wireframe, a prototype was created to understand the navigation and functionality of each element. This process was crucial to assess the feedback of developers, the client stakeholder, and the customer needs.
RESPONSIVE DESIGN
Numerex Dashboards required four breakpoints: TV for corporate presentations, Desktop for Managers, and Tablet and Mobile for Employees in the field.
INTERACTION DESIGN
Once the new architecture was defined (UX), I created a detailed documentation to explain the new user journeys. Adding specific comments to each user interface elements (UI) this documentation describes each element’s interaction (IxD).
This document was the end result of several conversations and iterations with the development team over Slack and InVision.
USER INTERFACE DESIGN
As Numerex as an established company already had branding principles, but the guidelines were not documented officially. Part of my job was to collect the partitioned pieces, document the Design System and evangeliza the Tech team on good practices.
BRANDING
Document the color pallete, draw the new icons and Illustrations.
DESIGN SYSTEM
Re-design and document all User Interface Elements. Define the CSS Stylesheet Library. Push changes to the UI Dev Repo. The user interface was built based on Atomic Design.
MENTORING
Assist the team in technical difficulties and collaborate with the definition of style guides and libraries used.
ATOMS: Single elements of the UI documented on the Design System.
MOLECULES: Groups of information = Device ID.
ORGANISMS: Groups of Molecules = All Devices.
TEMPLATES: Groups of Molecules repeated across various pages. = All Devices with Low Battery.
PAGES: Sets of templates required by all types of users. = Devices Overview, with all their forming attributes.
MEASURE MORE
During this process, the Numerex team did not have an analytics solution that allowed my team to measure user feedback often and compare the impact of our work. Things I would track in the future:
Special thanks to Gabriel Fagundez, BJ Allen, and our team of Engineers and Developers, for all their support, feedback and trust.
