Service Tracker is an Australian based SAAS company that has been around for more than 20 years creating comprehensive software and hardware products to provide attendance verification solutions to security and facility management companies, big and small, across Australia and neighbouring countries. These companies use the Service Tracker product to verify staff location and checkpoint inspection times to ensure they remain within the companies set contractual requirements and complaint with KPIs.
As the sole UX / product designer in the company, it was my role to oversee the development of the new SAAS platform from the first sketch to the final product. I would be working closely with the company stakeholders, internal and external development teams, as well as part time business and development mentors for assistance in best practices, industry workflows, workshop sessions, troubleshooting and more.
Initially, Service Tracker was built in 2003 as a stand alone windows desktop application with an online version being developed in 2012 carrying over most of the same features, but adding the option of real-time data collection with compatible SIM enabled hardware. Since then, the online Service Tracker application has been updated to new frameworks and servers, but the core functionality remained almost identical since the initial application launched back in 2003, leaving clients wanting more modern features such as mobile applications.
We set out to create a brand new, mobile first, platform that would be built from the ground up and only carry over the core reporting features from the previous platform that were still frequently used by clients, and in addition, add highly requested features such as mobile applications for Android and iOS, real-time location tracking via Bluetooth beacons and GPS, live mapping, incident reporting and much more.
Creating new features and updating existing ones involved speaking to a number of internal developers, business stakeholders and key clients to gain insights on individual workflows, business requirements and limitations, and ensuring everything came together in the middle.
A vital component of my research was talking to key stakeholders from companies, big and small, already using the existing software platform, as well as qualified sales leads that were using competitor software and were willing to openly discuss their requirements for a new platform.
During these interviews we would discuss their current pain points, whether it was with the current platform or competitors, and if any temporary solutions had been implemented to overcome these challenges in the meantime that could be eliminated or at least automated with the new platform. We would also go through the clients wish list of features they would like to see added and assessed their value as an added service and what impact it could have for both businesses.
We also learned that a majority of users (mostly security guards and cleaners) currently using the Service Tracker platform did not speak English as their first language. It became clear from an early stage that we would have to keep simplicity and accessibility as a key design requirement for the new platform in order to ensure an easy adoption process when it came time for deployment.
Once the core set of features was starting to take shape, I started working on some initial hand drawn sketches showing how the web and mobile applications might be laid out and interacted with by users.
From early on in the concept stage, I set myself the challenge of creating a user experience for the web platform that was completely usable on a standard iPad. From experience, enterprise software seems to have a nasty habit of being poorly designed in regards to layout and usability that can result in user frustration and extensive training requirements that could all be avoided. My goal was for each view and component in the web application to feel at home and completely accessible on an iPad, including accomodations for touch input rather than a traditional mouse and keyboard. This also naturally meant button and inputs were larger than before, making them much easier to identify and interact with.
As for the Android and iOS application, initial research showed that a majority of companies used a mix of both device platforms, as well as allowing users to bring their own devices, so it was absolutely vital to keep both applications and their styles and components as close to identical as possible to retain the usability and accessibility we were aiming for with the new platform.
Once I had a general design and layout theme going, these sketches were then transformed into low fidelity wireframes using Sketch to gain a better idea of layout and accessibility on different devices in order to perfect the usability and accessibility of features and components throughout the web and mobile applications.
Using the initial wireframes, I held several workshop sessions with internal staff, developers and selected clients to gain an understanding of how they would approach the usability of the new applications for the first time. This gave me valuable feedback into the exact workflows of clients, especially the smaller details such as optimising the order of specific input fields in a form or menu / tool bar buttons in the UI that could be better positioned to aid accessibility and streamline usability.
The next step in my process was to develop a comprehensive design system that included a full style guide for development and marketing departments to follow in order to keep a commonality across all mediums. As with the concepts so far, particular attention was payed to keeping things simple and accessible. As an example, colours for the main layout were kept subtle while highlight colours were kept to a minimum and only being used to highlight key functions to a user within the software (example, save actions, delete actions and so on).
From the initial design system, I developed a fully working UX prototype using Sketch for the web and mobile applications that would go on to showcase the usability of the new platform to internal staff, stakeholders, developers and more. these high fidelity screens also ended up being used in marketing materials on our own website, along with business partners and other advertising mediums.
Further workshops were also held where I would showcase the high fidelity UX prototype and asses reactions and adjust my design according to feedback that may have not surfaced during the initial workshop sessions where more basic wireframes were being used.
Now that everyone is happy with the design, it’s time to get the developers, internal and external, up to speed with the final requirements and expectations. Using the UX prototype, along with a design specification document containing supporting information for the UX prototype, as well as specifications on technologies (web services, UI libraries and so on) that would be utilised, I would present the UX prototype from start to finish, not only to show the developers the design, but to also ensure they understand how a user interacts with the UX based on previous workshop sessions.
Once the designs are fully understood and any questions or comments answered, I’d hand over the design files, including UX prototype, design system and supporting documentation to the development teams so we could begin working on the estimated delivery cycle in order to monitor and measure progress. For this, we adopted an agile development approach and worked in 2 week sprints with a daily (5 minute maximum) stand up meeting to check on progress and catch any issues.
By adopting an agile development cycle, we were able to release new features on a continual basis and quickly collect feedback and implement any improvements needed to ensure we maintained on track to achieve our goals.
Trello became our go to tool for developers, business stakeholders and myself for tracking each sprint and all the individual tasks selected for completion as they progressed through the Kanban board. This proved to be incredibly beneficial when it came to prioritising work and maintaining transparency throughout the entire business when it came to the overall development progress.
Once a release had been completed by the developers, It was time for me to test it out and ensure it aligned with the design specification. For this I would setup a brand new environment as if I was a new client, then run through the new feature from start to finish and note any bugs or issues found that would need to be given back to the developers for further work.
Once a release was given the OK during internal testing, the developers would deploy the release to a pre-production environment in order for a few select clients to test the new features for themselves out in the field. This proved a crucial step in identifying more complex bugs and issues as it offered more data for specific use cases in harsh environments (such as a dessert in the middle of Australia) that we were not able to produce locally.
Once we had all major bugs and issue ironed out, the release was pushed to the production environment ready for use with clients during their every day operations.
Within the first 12 months of the platform being live, we had more than 50% of all existing clients migrate to the new Service Tracker platform, and a large increase in sales due to the platforms new and highly requested features.
We’re very proud of how clients have taken up the new Service Tracker platform and some have shared key statistics on how it’s helped grow their business.
