Responsive Design
B2C
3D Model
The
TL;DR
Allied Buildings offered a web-based builder tool that allowed users to design and price their own prefabricated steel structures. However, the platform was only available on desktop, limiting access for a mobile-heavy customer base. I led the effort to make the experience mobile-friendly, created the company’s first user journey maps, and supported the remote development team by managing the backlog and running daily scrums. Within 4 months we delivered a simplified, mobile-compatible 3D building platform where customers could quote and even purchase a building.
Team
1 Designer, 1 in-house developer, remote development team, internal stakeholders
My Role
Product Designer & PM
Tools
Adobe XD, Miro, Invision
Timeline
June - October 2019
Why this project?
This was my first time working as a full time employee in the UX field. It was also the company’s 2nd “tech hire”. I used existing resources like recordings of sales calls to gather user research. Despite the limited structure and experience, our team was still able to deliver something in a span of 4 months. I enjoyed this project because of the tangible aspect of the building model and the customer base it was directed at.
My Process
1
Stakeholder interviews
Interviewed sales reps and project managers to understand buyer navigation across client types.
2
Sales call analysis
Identified common pain points and user vocabulary by listening to 30+ recorded sales calls.
3
Journey mapping
Highlighted different buying motivations and points of inflection in the purchase process.
4
Form design and styling
Used Allied's existing branding guide and translated it into components for a digital user interface.
5
Prioritization & backlog
Ran our daily scrums with the off-shore development team and prioritized our backlog items.
My Key Contributions
Designed a mobile version of a previously desktop-only platform with different landing pages for different customer profiles – homeowners who want a shed, equestrian professionals, farmers who need space for industrial equipment etc.
Created UI components, animations, and digital assets based on the company’s existing print branding.
Created journey maps to align team understanding.
Acted as PM: served as the internal team’s point of contact with the remote development team.
Learnings
This was my tech baptism (by fire?) I learned how to work with a remote team in a different timezone, what a backlog was, what “scrum” meant, and how to explain to everyone in a traditional company what “UX” was and why it could be valuable to them. If I could go back I would have spent more time early on building relationships with everyone and getting a deeper understanding of the organization’s history and existing obstacles.
What I would have measured
I ended up moving on to a different opportunity shortly after we wrapped up this project.
I would have liked to have seen the effects of the new experience on the following:
How did the updates impact quote completion? How did the rate change on mobile vs. desktop?
Was there an increase in leads from inbound calls coming from the Builder Site?
What percentage of buyers put down building deposits through the builder platform without ever speaking with a sales professional?
