Device Renewal Process Redesign

This project was for Ontario Government to optimize the process of device renewal and redesign the digital tool for government employees, branch contacts and desktop services team members. 1000+ devices in each planned quarterly renewal will be impacted.

As senior design consultant in this 2-designer project, my responsibilities are:

Facilitate user research and workshops to understand business needs
Propose solutions and conduct usability testings
Create design library and support implementation

Role

Sr UX consultant

Outputs

New device renewal processes

Redesign of the device management tool

Design library

Feature lists and user stories

Year

2023

Discovery and Research

7 job shadowing and 12 structured interviews were conducted to:

Understand the business processes
Identify user needs and pain points on the current end-to-end process
Create personas for all roles involved in the process based on the real data and define the journey map

🤯 Context of the project

What matters to business?

Desktop services team needs a simplified process to:

reduces unnecessary manual operations
improves efficiency for all supporting staff
shortens the end-to-end renewal timeline

The technology of current tool is out dated (10+ years ago). The team needs new technology to refresh the tool for scaling business needs

What matters to users?

Device users want to have the flexibility to:

Renew from non-OPS location
Select own device / exceptions
Self-install

Supporting staffs ask for a simplified UI to:

immediately use the tool without any training
No usability issues in the current toolsets
Minimize errors and changes in the current process

🧭 Define the problem & Propose solution

We facilitated 10+ workshops and 30+ interviews to define the problem to be solved, proposed potential solutions and validated the concepts
Based on the research insights, we introduced a new approach of self-service to meet business and user goals
Lo-fi designs and prototypes were created to visualize the ideas and support the workshops to be successful

Problem framing workshop x1

Define the problem to be solved:

Review user research findings
Understand current flows and states
Generate HMW statements to rephrase the problem

Solutioning workshops x7

Propose solutions:

Visualize proposals and create lo-fi prototypes to help team understand
Collect feedback & ideas on the process and screens based on user journey and work flows

Prioritizing workshops x2

Prioritize features by effort-impact:

Create feature list based on themes
Review & prioritize the features with the stakeholders

🎨 Design & Validate

Concept interviews x16

We demoed our high-level concepts to users to validate our ideas. The users include device users, branch contacts, managers and IT leads. Findings were shared back with desktop services team to get alignment.

Usability testings x12

We facilitated usability testings with users and stakeholders to find gaps between the solutions and user behaviour with hi-fi prototypes. Designs were iterated with the testing insights.

Connecting tools & platforms to empower a streamlined workflow

Current

Lots of processes are completed with PDF

users had to jump between tools (Sodo, RMO, Power BI) to deal with device needs and issues

Proposal

The tool will be streamlined for Desktop services team and Branch contacts to oversee device renewal and related processes

ONRequest (Existing IT self-service) will be integrated for users to submit requests, which will minimize learning curves

For Desktop services team

Current

Need to manage branch contacts manually to a new project from IT cluster's spreadsheet
Need to split the device orders by branch first before processing
Need to help people to make changes on the request after it's submitted

Proposal

IT cluster leads will have a portal to manage branch contact info regularly to keep it up-to-date
When creating a new project, Branch contact info is auto-generated with the eligible devices
Device user is engaged in the process, so unexpected changes will be reduced
During the change window, Branch contact could change the request directly

For Branch contacts

Current

Have to confirm the device status manually with self-created spreadsheet
Have to wait for everyone's needs to bundle the request before sending to Desktop services team
Paperwork is needed to transfer the task to the backup person
Need to manually collect device requirement information from device users

Proposal

Will have a portal to manage all devices to-be-renewed in the branches
Could investigate device status in the tool and take actions
Could enable the self-service, self-installation or ship-to-home with Branch's needs
Device users will confirm the devices and share their special requirements

For Device users

Current

Not involved in the process and didn't know what to get
Difficult to make changes or know the status of the request
Have to go to office to get the replacement

Proposal

Will be Involved in the process to report special needs or select replacements
Will be able to track the request status & get notifications of the status updates
Will be allowed to get the replacement shipped to home

🚧 Deliver for implementation

Create design library and specifications for developers

To align with Ontario Design Guidelines, we created a design library for all components used in the design, as well as responsive page templates.

Component library:

The library used the Ontario Design System as foundation, and included customized elements for the project.

Also, we tried to define the interaction logic and accessibility requirement for each component.

Page template:

We defined the page templates with breakpoints based on Ontario Design Guidelines. Though the primary use cases are on desktop, we still tried to make the designs adapt to different screen sizes to cover all user needs.

The template includes dashboard, details page, search and side panel.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Next steps

The development was in progress when I switched to a new project. The business stakeholders were satisfied with the proposed new processes and refreshed tools. Though we still have a few constraints considered during the process:

Self-service for device users

We suggested to enable self-service for end users to shorten the process but it was not in MVP scope as the team concerned about the potential impact of workloads

Vendor enablement

We suggested to involve vendors for change requests and provide updates to create a seamless renewal experience. This required further discussions with service suppliers.

Tools integration

We connected ONRequest for device management. Other tools (PowerBI, Sodo) were suggested to be integrated but IT needed more time to explore the solutions.