The Company
SMS Assist (acquired by Lessen in 2023) uses technology to facilitate property maintenance for its retail and residential clients. The company has a robust and successful Product department that uses human-centered design to create enterprise software. Our department has realized a 10x return on investment.
My Role
As Lead UX Architect, I participated in—and usually led—all phases of product discovery, design, and testing. This includes activities like ideation workshops, design workshops, journey mapping, shadowing, concept testing, wireframing, usability testing, and leveraging our design system to create final designs. In my time at the company I became known as a “complexity refiner”, thriving on difficult projects.
As Director of Design I took on higher-level strategic work, as well as managing the team and mentoring so that each employee could be their best.
The Project
Our Compliance department is charged with ensuring our vendors have signed a master services agreement (MSA) and any number of over a hundred different SOWs (depending on the client and work type), have turned in a W-9, and have provided necessary insurance documentation.
Prior to creating the new product, our Compliance Associates spent hours every week just figuring out which vendors they needed to follow up with. Getting the signatures and insurance docs wasn’t hard, but recording insurance information was onerous and frequently skipped.
My Tasks
Discovery, shadowing, ideation, wireframing, final designs, usability testing.
Discovery
Journey Mapping
I met with a Compliance Lead to draw up a detailed journey map. We marked which processes could be automated and which really needed to be handled by a human—and which would be the biggest wins.
Complicated Logic
The next step was to determine what needed to be done in order to automate. For example, in order to know which SOW a vendor needed to sign, we needed to know which SOW went with which work order service combination. This was institutional knowledge that wasn’t anywhere in the system—so we would need a mapping tool so that the institutional knowledge could be put into the system.
Iterative Releases
We broke the project down into releasable components that would each add value, while keeping sight of our eventual full goal.
The solution
A Task Manager Assistant
We leveraged existing designs for Task Managers to create a “Task Assistant” (the Compliance team chafed at the idea of a tool to “manage” their work). It identifies needed tasks for the Compliance Associates, so they don’t have to run laborious reports weekly to figure out what they need to do. It also allows them to take action on and complete each task right there in the application.
A Scope of Work Mapping Tool
To make that work, we needed a tool for Compliance team leads to map which SOW goes with which work order. After the initial launch, there would just be occasional updates—which meant it needed to be as clear and intuitive as possible, so when the user returns to a tool they haven’t touched in months, they can figure it out.
Integration with Document Signing Software
Previously, the tasks associated with our document signing software were handled separately. Since tasks would now be completed within the application, these tasks needed to be pulled in as well.
An Insurance Data Entry Tool
In order to flag insurance issues, we needed all insurance data entered into the system. In order to, for example, flag that a vendor has insufficient workers comp coverage, we need to know what is required per the contract and how much coverage the vendor has in that category. The data is complicated, so the interface needed to be easy.
Results
In the two months following release: