Customs Mgmt. System
Agility Logistics
Redefining user experience for micro-clear suit's customs management system
My Role
Project Lead, Requirement Analysis, Interaction Design, Visual Design.
Team
2 Interaction Designers
&
1 Visual Designer
Duration
4-5 weeks
PROBLEM SPACE
Microclear Suite's Customs Management System
Customs Management System is a trade facilitation application which allows automation of Customs operations and advanced Customs management techniques using information analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The system helps the goods carriers to process customs & clearance, it also offers customs official to have access to the submitted applications to see the declarations and validate it.
It allows different customs officials at different organizational levels to be connected and work in-sync on the same platform in the due course of journey of any goods being exported or imported from one country to another.
Key Challenges
DESIGN APPROACH
Collaborative, Lean
Collaboration was one of the key elements of the engagement. It was crucial that the design outputs where in coherence with multiple departments as well as the development teams so as each works under a focused goal.
The design strategy was more of a Goal Focused Design
UNDERSTANDING & SYNTHESIS
Understand the current system
To understand more of the domain and the functional model, the focus was on putting all ears into listening to the domain experts in e-services.
Following were some of the key activities performed:
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User task flow maps were created to understand the main priority of each persona & department involved in the system.
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Performed workshop with the stakeholders and core team to understand the key pain points
Listing Down
We listed down the expectations of the end-users after reviewing the current system from a usability point-of-view. These helped us to gain a direction to evaluate the existing product.
Problem Definition
A workshop with the Agility team and the stakeholders helped reveal the most critical problems.
The workshops involved open ended questions; observations & discussion helped to understand and detail out the workflow of the entire system
IDEATION & PROTOTYPING
Hypothesis
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A system distinct information flow with real time status of each goods.
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Role-based UI to show only the relevant content.
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Wizard based approach of filling form. These also have ability to be dropped off anywhere and to be regained when needed.
Initial Prototypes & Wireframes
Once the low-fi wireframes and the information architecture was done, it was presented to the stakeholders for feedback. Using low-fi wireframes and paper prototypes the feedback loops were shorter and much more effective.
At a later point in the process the final hi-fidelity wireframes were created in order flesh out different section of the pages and get a final buy-out from the stakeholders and developers.
Visual Design
Finally the visual design for the entire system created.
CONCLUSION
Reflections
All in all it was a new kind of experience for me as a major portion of the work was in workshop mode and it required a lot of presence on the floor all the time. Interacting with the stakeholders and simultaneously churning out ideas in the brainstorming exercise provided a big opportunity to learn & think on the feet.
Designing for legacy applications are much more difficult than any other kind of B2C, B2B or enterprise applications as it have been in constant mode of evolution from the perspective of the client functional requirement so very less effort is spent in terms of resources and time to think from the design perspective keeping the end-user in the centered.
Furthermore, the technology part is crucial aspect of these legacy application as they are dated & it's very difficult to make agreement on the perspective of the upgrading technology just on the basis of design changes. So side-by-side it's very important to learn about the basics of the underlying technology before even proposing any modern interactions.
Lastly, design doesn't stop with few screens and design deliverables it is more important to inculcate design thinking among the people who are working on the applications on every-day basis be it developers, sales people or marketing people.