Intro
Windhelm was a wind farm monitoring piece of software which was used by engineers around the world to help them analyse monitor, increase efficiencies, optimise or control any combination of wind across their wind turbine portfolio at any given time, so the software was quite complex as it had lots of variables in which engineers had to take into account.
The software needed to free up engineers to increase efficiencies in their work load, giving them back the time they needed to dedicate to other areas of the business. The software was quite old so we decided to give it a design overhaul.
I was a worked alongside the lead UX designer to work on a series of products to to really bring this piece of software up-to-date. He predominantly worked on the desktop and tablet version of the site whilst I worked on the mobile version of the site. Together we came up with a series of a responsive devices to work on the product itself, which would later pitch at a global, annual meeting for senior managers.
Original software, before UX Design.
Personas I put together for the team from gathering existing research.Our users
Prior to joining DNV GL, the lead UX designer had been collating user research and testing products for 2 years. In order to make the information quick and easier for our team to access we worked together to create personas out of the collated data. I interviewed him to get a better understanding and so that we could use evidence based information to create better informed designs.
From a number of conversations we created a series of personas which could then be referred to by the team.
Key learnings
We learnt that our site owners needed:
Easy access to an overview of their farms
Key wind farm performance data
Quick access to notifications in case of emergencies
Something that was interactive and engaging
The challenge
The biggest challenge was prioritising which data sets to present. I used the key site owner goals which we had previously identified in our personas.These goals included:
Monitoring financial performance and targets
Be kept up to do date on portfolio /campaign status
Be alerted to any issues that affect success
Enjoy engaging with software and minimise time /effort.
I used these goals to guide my decision making when designing.
