May 2022 - August 2022
3D Systems
Figma, FigJam, Sketch, Adobe CC
UX/UI Designer
Send print jobs remotely to Figure 4 printers from a new centralized platform Oqton(cloud).
After my research, we removed the pause button on Oqton software which helped prevent many potential errors.
User Research, Product Design, Usability Testing
For detailed case study walkthrough or to view the deck below, please contact me :)
By conducting contextual inquiry I wanted to understand the existing user flow so that we can replicate it on Oqton. Something interesting I found was that pause button was disabled on software. We could only pause machine manually by opening the door. I did not consider it important initially.
- observed 5 engineers while operating the Figure 4 printer.
- took notes, snapshots & recorded all steps involved.
I continued my work and based on the contextual inquiry I created end-to-end user flow diagram. This existing workflow diagram was going to be used to map similar flow on Oqton which would simplify the current pipeline.
main challenge here was to give as much information as we can about the machines and their status without overwhelming the users.
Test usability of DMP Assistant on the new touch screens.
Design changes reduced the software operation time from 2-3 days to a few minutes.
User Research, Product Strategy, Usability Testing
For detailed case study walkthrough or to view the deck below, please contact me :)
DMP machines were located in Littleton. To study how engineers interact with the new software on a touch interface I had to conduct a field study. While the touch screens were being set up, I noted engineers complaining about usability issues in the software even with a keyboard.
- One week, 5 engineers
- Took pictures, videos & detailed notes while they were using the new software.
I also conducted user interviews along with my contextual studies to discuss further about these complaints. They have to restart the process again in case of an error and it can take up to 3 days for a job to finish if something like that happens cause they can't undo it.
- Follow-up questions during contextual study
- 45-50 minutes
- Semi-structured
- 5 engineers
- in-person, recorded & transcribed in Teams
After the touch screens were installed, I conducted usability study with engineers to identify any usability issues in the key user workflows.
- Create a job
- Add a new job
- Edit job
- Send a job
- Delete a job
20+ key usability issues in the DMP Assistant that impacted the performance of engineers when using touch interface. I categorized them into 5 categories based on Jakob Nielsen's general principles.
Touch Inaccessibility: Small touch elements, hover-dependent functions, and lack of touch consideration lead to poor touch interaction.
Error Intolerance: Absent visual error cues and ability to recover indicate a lack of support for user mistakes.
Poor Visual Communication and Feedback: Lack of visual hierarchy, inconspicuous functions, and poor feedback hinder user understanding.
Inefficient and Cumbersome Workflows: Manual reordering, object manipulation difficulties, and manual pausing make workflows inefficient.
Inconsistent and Unpredictable System Behavior: Undo/Redo issues and unexpected grouping create inconsistent system behavior.
I came up with 4 main design recommendations to improve the DMP Assistant's user experience on touch screen.
