UX Strategy - Internal Tools
Role Based Applications
OVERVIEW
In my role as Director of Digital Experience at CSX, I led the UX strategy for role-based applications, spearheaded the design and UI framework, and collaborated extensively with architecture, product, security teams.
Over years of mergers and acquisitions, CSX technology teams had acquired numerous applications, resulting in a fragmented user experience and inconsistent UIs. This challenge drove us to rethink our design and technology approach for application development.
To create the design strategy, we adhered to our established process for new applications, which incorporates design thinking and the double diamond approach. This methodology helped us uncover organizational needs from both strategic and service design perspectives, ensuring our design process accounted for future scalability and evolution.
Our initial focus was on the field teams, whose rapidly changing needs meant that improving their work processes would be particularly valuable. We focused on the Train & Engine (T&E) worker for the first roll-out, identifying their applications, with plans to expand the strategy to other teams.
Collaboration with product, engineering, and security teams was crucial. We addressed considerations such as access management, user profiles, one-off access scenarios, timing of access requests, and the ease of integrating new tools into the platform. All while introducing tablets into the field.
USER PROBLEMS
Challenges with legacy system:
Today’s workers have to navigate between 5-7 apps to perform their main tasks
Several applications had yet to be rewritten to align with UX standards
Access to the applications must be granted manually as employees are onboarded
GOALS & OBJECTIVES
Launch a one-stop shop concept for T&E works to manage their daily tasks.
Utilize dashboard views based on user roles and work type that presents data from various sources in ONE UI - eliminating wasted time navigating between multiple applications.
Cohesive experience with aligning to UX standards
Seamless onboarding based on user role
Establish a framework for the future
Do no harm- Ensure users don’t lose access to key applications and features during this process
UX STRATEGY PARTNERSHIPS
As Director of Digital Experience, I managed:
Center of Excellence team of onsite + remote designers, engineers + product (1:1’s, Team meeting, Dept Meetings, Pillar Meetings, Design Crits)
UX Designers + UXR (7)
UI Architect/ Software Engineers (7)
Corporate Website Product Analyst (1)
Design Program Manager (1)
Day-to-day collaboration with cross-functional teams (1:1’s, Pillar Meetings, Design Reviews)
Chief Engineer Architect + Principals + IC’s
Product/ Business pillar stakeholders (8)
GIS
AWS vendor contact
Data Center team
Security team
Urgent design cycle (due to Covid the timeline to launch V1 shortened)
Met with Executive level stakeholders in Technology + Product/ Business
Met with designers + cross-functional partners regarding design work
Reviewed the design scope + design concepts
Worked with the designers + engineers + program manager for weekly presentations to executives on progress
Product + engineering reviews
Strategy + Funding + OKR management
Design Process
Our Process & Methodology
A Process For Every Requirement
What project type do you have?
Strategy For Insights & Data
Our Core Guiding Principles
Heart Framework
A set of user-centered metrics developed to evaluate the quality of the UX and help teams measure the impact of UX changes.
Designs
BEFORE
AFTER
TESTING & VALIDATION
Field Visits
Train & Engineering employees prototype Review
Approach
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1. Implementation
Development Handoff: Provided detailed design specifications using the CSX style guide and assets to the development team.
Quality Assurance: Developers would ensure the final product meets design specifications by utilizing the CSX Showcase for development components and education.
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2. Launch & Monitor
Launch Plan: Prepared for the launch with our field analysts and service desk teams for user onboarding.
Monitor Performance: We tracked key performance indicators (KPIs) such as calls to the service desk and user feedback post-launch.
Continuous Improvement: Use insights from monitoring to make iterative improvements. Additional application needs were requested.
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Note: The onset of COVID-19 accelerated our delivery timeline. Federal railroad regulations mandated physical distancing, making it essential to provide daily information and management tasks remotely. Consequently, we launched the first iteration (V.1) on tablets for Train & Engine workers in 2020. -
3. Communication
Various communication channels were utilized:
- UXU and DevU
- DigiX email channel
- Executive team meeting
- Product team meetings: Field teams and internal
UX DESIGN BENEFITS & OUTCOMES
We accomplished the following with in-house UX & technical teams:
Centralization & Consolidation
Centralized application & document access, offering convenience for users
Managed, reusable access profiles to reduce repetition in employee onboarding
Reduced the application count by combining application use cases by role
Adoption & Usage
Field visits allowed for informed decisions for the user experience for the application and device strategy
T&E Workers in 2020 during the early onset of Covid were able to use their tablets to work outside of crowded
More roles have requested this framework
LESSONS LEARNED
These lessons validated our initial approach AND paved the way for a more flexible, secure, and user-centric design strategy going forward.
Scalable Design System
The design system developed for the enterprise was scalable for the future needs of the UX strategy, ensuring that our approach could adapt to evolving requirements.
Addressing UX Needs and Technical Constraints
We identified key UX needs, particularly constraints with the PDF viewer. To address this, I collaborated with the Chief Architect, Security, UI Architect, and Sr. Designer to recommend and implement improvements in our tech stack. This facilitated users' ability to view secure PDFs on tablets.
UX Framework for Future Versions
The lessons learned from this launch provided a framework that could be applied to upcoming versions and across other products.
Dynamic Design Approach:
The success of the V.1 launch facilitated discussions on adopting a more dynamic design approach for applications. This was in contrast to creating massive, monolithic applications.
Micro-App Concept
I started discussions to support the dynamic design approach regarding the micro-app concept, utilizing web component architecture to render other applications. This included developing document components with backend services to enable users to retrieve documents responsively and securely.