Lumen Technologies
Company Type: EnterpriseAgency
Role: Senior UX Designer
Background
Lumen Internet On-Demand product provides businesses with unparalleled flexibility in accessing dedicated Internet connections. It allows users to swiftly procure the required capacity for their specific needs, without being tied down to lengthy contracts or enduring prolonged setup times. Essentially, it offers a seamless and efficient solution for obtaining Internet connectivity on-demand, empowering organizations to adapt quickly to evolving demands and maintain optimal network performance.
During the project kickoff, I collaborated with the customer experience team in Miro to thoroughly discover user touchpoints.
These sessions, spanning multiple hours, involved product owners, managers, and select developers, ensuring comprehensive consideration of all potential touchpoints. Throughout our discussions, we diligently noted existing pain points encountered by users interacting with Lumen salesmen, as well as anticipated pain points.
After these sessions, if I needed to clear up any user journeys I created my own user journey maps for multiple product experiences.
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After the product manager translated the identified touchpoints into JIRA requirements, I utilized Balsamiq to craft lo-fi wireframes, initiating feasibility discussions with the development team.
This process marked a departure from Lumen Technologies' conventional approach, which typically bypassed this step in favor of diving straight into high-fidelity mockups to rush to development. Advocating for the incorporation of this step into our workflow during various releases, I emphasized its potential to streamline efforts for both designers and developers.
Moreover, recognizing the team's inclination towards visual problem-solving, I found that the lo-fi wireframes served as valuable tools for brainstorming solutions. These wireframes often unearthed unforeseen pain points, prompting critical questions such as, "Can our APIs retrieve this data in real-time?"
Following the presentation of the lo-fi wireframes to stakeholders, I led working sessions with the product team to fine-tune the proposed experience to align with technical capabilities and project deadlines.
I championed this aspect of the process, particularly due to Lumen's tendency to immediately delve into high-fidelity mockups. Prior to investing time in crafting pixel-perfect designs, I pushed for this intermediary step to be integrated into our workflow. This ensured that a finalized user experience was established before progressing to high-fidelity mockups, ultimately saving time and effort in the design process.
Subsequent to these stages, I meticulously crafted pixel-perfect high-fidelity mockups adhering to Lumen's standardized style guide, incorporating continuous input from fellow UX Designers and leadership.
Once finalized, these designs were handed over to the development team. Additionally, I actively engaged in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) to ensure the proper implementation of UI elements and address any discrepancies that arose during development.
Final Learnings Post Launch
Given our stringent deadline for product release, extensive UI and experience refinement were necessary post-launch. It was during this phase that we uncovered numerous discrepancies in how we had initially integrated the new experience into the broader context of the company's portal.
This served as a significant learning opportunity, highlighting the risks of working in silos and emphasizing the importance of considering the holistic integration of new features within the existing framework.
During my involvement in this project, I spearheaded a visual overhaul of the company's order flow, transitioning it into a more innovative wizard experience.
After starting at the company, I observed the use of an expansion panel in the order flow, which, while functional, was considered somewhat outdated in terms of UI design. Despite its initial positive reception among users, I advocated for conducting a UI test to learn whether users would prefer a wizard experience, especially with the increasing complexity of our product offerings.
The wizard design allowed us to streamline the user experience by concealing expansive flows within individual screens, rather than relying on conditional accordions to manage complex orders.
