UX for safety management startup
Client: FastEvac, Orange County, CA (2016)
FastEvac, an EvoNexus startup was working on building the User experience for their mobile app. The team is trying to solve a critical workplace problem – Safe and simple evacuations.
Methods: UCD, Lean Canvas, User Interviews, Lo-fi mockup, Clickable prototype
Tools: UX Pin, Balsamiq, Invision, Adobe Photoshop
RESEARCH
Understanding the landscape with Lean Canvas
Working with the founders, we started exploring the lean canvas to understand the problem statement, value add and customer segments. Although I have read extensively about the lean canvas this was my first experience reviewing this model for a business.
Key learnings from the lean canvas include:
• Recognizing customer segments: Large warehouses, manufacturers, University campus and multi-building facilities
• The major problem faced by the audience is the ability to find out if an employee/student is safe during an emergency.
• What competitors are offering and the price point at which services are offered
DISCOVER
User Flows
I started off by charting the critical use flows for two main users – safety manager and employee. Using a simple excel sheet, I came with a list of tasks for each these users. This helped further my discussion with the team and from there on I created user flows with simple sketches. The initial balsamiq prototype was a quick and easy way to get feedback on what the sponsor had imagined vs what I had in mind.
Conducting User Interviews
At this point, user interviews seemed like the easiest method of qualitative research that would help build an accurate persona. For interviews, I compiled a list of questions that would aid my discussion with safety managers.
• Can you describe how you spend a typical day or week?
• Which activities do you spend the most time on?
• What is/are your worst pain point(s)?
• Can you tell me how you use your current evacuation management product?
• What does evacuation management allow you to accomplish that you otherwise couldn’t?
• Where does it fall short? What doesn’t it do (or do well) that you need it to? What would an ideal experience with FastEvac be like?
• Have you used other products to do that in the past? What were they?
• Which [product] is better? Why?
• What kind of [reports/documentation] do you create?
• What roles (co-worker, PM, manager, developer, etc.) do the people who receive your [reports/documentation] play?
DESIGN
UX Pin Clickable prototype
The intent of the project was to create a clickable prototype that would give a narrative to potential investors on the product that FastEvac was building and the need for this product in the marketplace.
UI Design
Login
UI DESIGN
Onboarding Users
FastEvac Chatbot
HOORAY
Final Outcome
I was able to deliver a feature list and a clickable prototype to the team which was used in investor meetings.
The user stories and wireframes were used in discussions with the off site development team.
