One of the most important applications in Verizon FUZE is the reporting tool called SPM Dashboards. Dashboards are a way for Network Engineers to see at a high level the performance of particular projects. The legacy application had about 1,500 users. The key objective was to redesign the application from the ground up. The previous application had many issues and pain points with the UI.
The method chosen to recreate the new Dashboard application was the Design Thinking Stanford Model. The model is a non-linear, iterative process intended to understand users, challenge assumptions, define problems, and create solutions to prototype and test. There are 5 phases.
Empathize – involves interviewing users, conducting surveys, creating personas, user journey maps, competitive analysis, etc. In this stage our ux team observed what users do and how they interact with the application. These observations gave clues about what users think and feel about the legacy Dashboard application. After deploying a System Usability Scale (SUS) survey to the 1,500 users, the design team were able to learn initial problem areas come up with questions for the interviews.
In the Define stage, the team synthesize research findings to clearly articulate the core problem they need to solve. They analyze data from interviews, observations and surveys and look for common themes and frustrations in user behavior.
Screenshot of the legacy SPM Dashboards landing page
Screenshot of the legacy SPM Dashboards chart widget screen
A competitive analysis is important in Design Thinking because it helps teams understand the market landscape, identify gaps, and create differentiated, user-centered solutions. While Design Thinking focuses on human needs, analyzing competitors provides valuable context for innovation.
A persona is crucial in Design Thinking because it helps teams stay focused on real user needs, behaviors, and motivations. It acts as a user-centered reference throughout the design process, ensuring solutions are built with empathy and practicality. It is used to humanize the problem. Personas are a fictional characters created after interviewing users. A lot of the research data is real and meant to help understand users needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals.
The Ideation stage in Design Thinking is important because it fosters creative problem-solving, encourages diverse perspectives, and generates innovative solutions to user challenges.
Storyboarding may be one of the most important exercises because it helps visualize the user journey, making abstract ideas more tangible. It allows teams to empathize with users, identify pain points, and refine solutions before moving into prototyping and testing.
As a visual communicator, ideation is important to create wireframes so development has an understanding of what the app will look like.
The team knew early on that we wanted to build an application that focused on improving the organization of dashboards and creating dashboards. We wanted to reduce the learning curve with having a familiar interface.
A low fidelity wireframe was produced using Balsamiq. It is a tool for quick on the fly rough wireframing.
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The Prototype stage in Design Thinking involves transitioning to high-fidelity mockups using Figma. At Verizon, the branding design system played a key role in streamlining this process. The team leveraged the Verizon Design System (VDS) UI kit to ensure consistency, efficiency, and alignment with brand standards while creating high-fidelity mockups.
Widget grid system - above is the grid system for the trackers on multiple platforms.
The Testing stage in Design Thinking is where prototypes are evaluated with real users to gather feedback, validate assumptions, and refine solutions before final implementation. It helps ensure that the design effectively meets user needs and solves the identified problem. Testing the prototype is a way to fail cheaply and allows you to make modifications before going into development.
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scapursi@mixedi.com