The problem
Tucker Technology, a telecommunications company whose services include cell site installation and maintenance, needed to replace the decentralized system they were using to dispatch technicians to sites. They asked us to design a responsive web app that would streamline their work.
Our goal was to automate job management as much as possible and use the app to handle the communication between the two user groups: Administrators (who work in the office) and technicians (who work outside on cell sites).
My role
As the UX designer at ATTCK, I was responsible for defining problems, identifying pain points in the flow, and finding opportunities for improvement. It was important to thoroughly understand the way our two user groups worked.
Our team began by observing them do their jobs as they talked us through their process. The administrators walked us through their existing process, which involved spreadsheets, data that had to be transferred manually, and manual creation of reports. We followed a technician as he accepted a job request via text message, arrived at the cell site on a rooftop, completed the task, and called the administrators to send a report. It was pretty cold on that roof!
Technician making a repair on a roof
User flows and wireframes
Next, I created user flows and site maps. The technicians would often be on the move, and needed to be able to perform these tasks on a mobile device:
- Accept or decline a job
- See upcoming jobs
- Check into a site using a ticket number
- Leave notes for tasks after completing a job
- Check out of a site once the job is completed
Technician flow: Job management (mobile)
Meanwhile, the admins needed to perform these tasks on their desktops:
- Create a new job record
- Set recipients for job status notifications
- Assign a job to a technician
- Get a notification when a technician completes a job
- Suspend a technician
Administrator flow: Job management (desktop)
We identified pain points as well as opportunities for improvement in future phases of the project, such as integration with SMS and Google Calendar. Based on these flows, I created a complete set of wireframes and worked with a developer to execute them. There was no budget for visual design, so we used Bootstrap to build it out and kept the default Bootstrap design elements.
Tucker Technology wireframes
Outcome
Our complete system unified all previous analog systems into one seamless experience. From job dispatch and completion percentage reporting to billing, invoicing, and issue tracking to a real-time, on-demand mobile app, Tucker Technology is now poised for scalable growth. The finished product is a custom-tailored, full-featured, streamlined business workflow application.