As a team within Ford, FordLabs collaborates with Ford businesses to address substantial challenges by creating digital products and services using a lean and human-centered approach.
UX Research: Comparative Analysis, Design System, User Interviews and Analysis, Affinity Mapping
UX Design: Ideation, Lo-fi Mockups, Mid-fi Wireframes, Usability Testing, Hi-fi Prototypes
Duration: 5 months, Jan '24 - May '24
Type: Product Design Apprenticeship
Team: Claire O'Malley, Damaris Adeniji, Erika Suin Shin, Joe Maddux, Joel Archer, Kavni Shah, Mahi Tripathi, Prithvi Manjunatha, Tejasvi Bhagwatkar
The goal was to design a communication platform for Ford employees—a personalized digital space for peer recognition, appreciation, and event collaboration.
The final outcome was to create an interactive prototype and a design system for building the platform that is minimalist, cost-effective, and intuitive.
The primary motivation for the designing this project is the lack of existing services catering to the diverse use cases of individual teams within the company and the escalating costs associated with frequent usage of the current third-party applications.
The challenge was to design a space where teams of varying sizes within Ford could celebrate their peers' accomplishments, milestones, and events while also ensuring the needs of individual employees were addressed.
The homepage has a two-column layout with a navigation bar on the left. It has three subsections: “For You,” “Calendar,” and “Upcoming,” for easy access to product functionalities. The search bar also includes sorting, filtering, notifications, and a profile top bar, simplifying the layout.
The prototype of the Posts Page demonstrates a completed board for a coworker’s birthday. It supports various media types, including images, GIFs, audio, and text. Users can choose their preferred format. The board’s theme is illustrated by an editable background image. A hover button lets users contribute while viewing the board.
The image illustrates the board creation page. Users can search, browse, and select a template from a list of pre-existing options, including themes like birthdays, anniversaries, and celebrations. Additionally, they can choose the recipients and contributors to ensure targeted engagement and save the board as a draft or send it to the selected people to initiate contributions.
For our initial research, we analyzed the platform that was being used at Ford and performed a competitive analysis of similar services. Through primary research, we gathered insights into the social culture at Ford and interviewed Ford employees to understand their needs from the platform.
To develop a deeper understanding of user needs and product offerings on the existing platform used at Ford, we interacted with the team at KudoBoard. Kudoboard, a paid service, is used at companies like Ford to celebrate and recognize their colleagues' accomplishments. It enables users to create digital boards where they can share messages, photos, and other content. Kudoboard serves as a virtual platform for spreading positivity and acknowledging accomplishments.
Screencapture of KudoBoard's Board Creation tab
Our competitive analysis aimed to identify platforms similar to KudoBoard and compare key considerations for our design proposal. We compared platforms based on features, price, and board types to KudoBoard. This helped us identify model features and understand KudoBoard’s significance in Ford’s social culture, influencing our decision-making.
After analyzing the top three competitors, we’ve noticed that they all share the following common features:
- Calendar Feature: Adding a calendar to track birthdays, anniversaries, and work events improves organization.
- Point System: Managers initiating point systems instead of transactions enhances the platform.
- Gift Card Donations: Enabling gift card donations in birthday posts shows appreciation.
Following our secondary research, we conducted user interviews with stakeholders to understand their experiences with KudoBoard and their expectations for our proposal. We analyzed the interviews data using affinity maps and translated the themes into how-might-we-questions to explore potential design solutions for the product. We then developed a priority matrix to identify primary and secondary features for our design proposal.
We interviewed 5 FordLabs employees to gain insights into their interactions with KudoBoard, and we developed affinity maps to analyze the interview data. The goal of our interviews was to:
- Understand FordLabs employees' interactions with the platform currently used at Ford.
- Identify their needs for virtual celebrations.
- Gain insights into other platforms like KudoBoard, Slack, and Webex used by the employees.
- Uncover any pain points in their celebration processes.
Data from the User Interviews Organized by Interviewees
After conducting our interviews, our team created an affinity diagram to consolidate our understanding of our user group. We organized the information into the following categories:1. -
Multimedia: Describing the communication platforms FordLabs employees utilize.
Bonding: Entailing the methods by which coworkers interact both during and outside of office hours.
Ease of Interactions: Features that interviewees found useful and straightforward.
Weekly Touch Base: Execution of informative employee gatherings and cross-communication.
Workplace Gifting: Celebratory efforts demonstrated virtually and in person between coworkers.
Communication Channel: Slack-based messaging focused on recognizing employee accomplishments through shout-out comments.
Affinity Mapping of the User Interviews
After creating our affinity diagram, we generated "how might we" statements based on the previously mentioned categories. This process helped us identify the next steps in our design process. These "how might we" statements represent the pain points identified by our team, and we intend to use them as a guide for prioritizing our matrices.
Themes from User Interviews Translated into "How Might We" Questions
Following the evaluation of options from the affinity diagrams, our goal was to refine our approach to the solution. This involves assessing our options within the prioritization matrix to pinpoint the most impactful questions we need to address in our design. The "how might we" statements we prioritize for our design decisions are categorized as follows:
Do Next:
How might we create an easy-to-navigate interface?
How can we provide the optimal level of self-expression?
How might we incorporate some of the top gifts employees appreciate into our design?
Do Now:
How can we incorporate easy-to-operate features that enhance the convenience of the platform
How might we decrease the overload of channels while maintaining quality?
How can we encourage gift-giving without making it feel forced?
How can we create an efficient way for people to communicate reminders regarding informal events and celebrations?
Do Later:
How would we encourage employees to indulge in reactions?
To address the prioritized "how might we" statements, we propose the following features -
Tutorial Option for Employees: Provide a comprehensive tutorial to help employees navigate the platform and utilize its features efficiently.
User-Friendly and Easy-to-Navigate Website: Design the website with a clean, intuitive interface to ensure ease of use for all employees.
Emoji Feature: Integrate an emoji feature to enhance self-expression and make interactions more engaging.
Personal Email Connection: Enable employees to connect their personal email accounts to the platform for seamless communication and updates.
Anonymous Messaging and Gift-Giving: Include an option for anonymous messaging and gift-giving to allow for more spontaneous and genuine expressions of appreciation.
Posting our research through stakeholder interviews, user surveys, and competitive analysis, we gathered insights into user content and interaction expectations. Organizing the content into relevant categories and creating a site map reflecting the user journey and task flows, we iteratively refined the structure for intuitive navigation and easy access to information and features.
Information Architecture of the Proposed Application
With insights from our information architecture, we designed the homepage, contribute page, and create new board page of the platform using our sketches and wireframes as a foundation. Our focus was on structuring content layout and simplifying information for clarity and usability. We aimed to intuitively organize content making navigation easy the users.
Mid-fi Prototype of the Proposed Platform's Home Page and Posts Page
Mid-fi Prototype of the Proposed Platform's Contribute to a Board Page
Mid-fi Prototype of the Proposed Platform's Create Page
Design System for the Proposed Platform
The homepage layout features a two-column design with a side navigation bar which is further divided into three subsections—For You, Calendar, and Upcoming. An search bar is integrated into the top section on the main body, effectively reducing the number of sections on the page.
Hi-fi Prototype of the Home Page
The following is prototype of Posts Page showing a completed board for a coworker’s birthday. It supports various media types, including images, GIFs, audio, and text, allowing users to choose their preferred format. The board’s theme is illustrated by an editable background image.
Hi-fi Prototype of the Posts Page
Users can browse and select a template from a list of pre-existing options, such as birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations, and professional events, to create a new board. They can then choose recipients to contribute to the board, ensuring targeted engagement. Users can save the board as a draft or send it to recipients to initiate contribution collection.
Create New Board - Templates Gallery View
Create New Board - Recipient Details Pop-up Menu