Abound
I helped designed 2 new features of Abound and improved the Air Design System.
Abound by Carrier is a B2B application that helps maintain safer, healthier, and sustainable buildings by providing data visualizations and insights on air quality, energy performance, and green building standards.
Feature 1
Streamlining remote access to devices
Problem
How can we streamline remote management of devices and provide actionable insights on their performance?
Specific Goals
Show actionable insights on device performance.
Allow managers to see backups of data and set backup schedules.
Allow managers to supervise technician's access to devices.
Research
I worked with the team's product manager and product designers to understand who we are designing for.
Wireframing
For research wireframes, I used components I created for the design system. The fidelity was lowered so users feel comfortable giving feedback.
Iteration
I continuously iterated on how to best represent data that was most important to the users.
One consideration was how small details like using a edit flow over drop-downs can lead to more user confidence for consequential actions like setting schedules for backing up data or restoring a backup version.
Another decision was how to provide relevant statuses on the graph in a concise and legible way. Several versions were created to help the team decide which includes the information that is most important for users. The last option was chosen for better color accessibility.
Solution
A simplified dashboard with information hierarchy that provides key insights on device performance.
Feature 2
Detecting and problem-solving faulty equipment
Problem
How can we help building managers diagnose and solve faulty equipment?
Specific Goals
Show the specific fault, confidence level that it is faulty, and potential impact.
Provide context that shows what led to the fault and specific details to assess the situation.
Guide users on recommended solutions to address the fault.
Research
After reading through research reports and workshops in Figjam, I summarized the research team's findings and brainstorming sessions in terms of the problem, context, and possible solutions flows.
Wireframing
I built out several of the requirements originally in wireframes. However, those made too many assumptions about what users (facilities managers) needed and prioritized. So I broke up the sections into cards that could be dragged around for research.
Solution
The different sections were then organized based on priority of important information to create a flow that facility managers go through to diagnose the issue.
"This work feels like we actually understand our user. The way the design team took the work and organized all of the elements, creating a flow, its like a huge sense of relief to see something that seems to make so much sense for our users."
— Lead of design research team
Takeaways
Navigating complexity through design
The team worked with complex systems of equipment, devices, and large datasets. We often had to design with ambiguous, shifting information. I learned that while it's important to get solid data and requirements to work from, it was the process of designing - making something tangible and showing to others - that got questions answered.