Access Management
ZTR Control Systems 2019
ABOUT THE DESIGN
The ONE i3® Access Management™ project was an effort spanning 4 months. It is a software application that allows Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Equipment Rental Managers and Construction Site Managers to manage operator access on construction equipment.
MY ROLE
I was the Lead Designer, working tightly with a Director of Product Development, an Engineering Supervisor, multiple Program Managers, a Lead Developer and a number of existing customers.
It was my role to bring a design thinking approach to this project and implement best practices in regards to user research, design and testing.
PROBLEM
Our users were looking for a simplified way to assign operators to construction equipment using codes or RFID cards.
WHY IS THE PROBLEM WORTH SOLVING?
Operators are using equipment that they are not properly trained on
Equipment is being used after hours/after rental contracts have ended
Equipment is being stolen
No history of who used the equipment last and for how long, (customers want this for billing purposes)
Helps organize equipment fleets and adds extra security
RESEARCH
I was in charge of all user research, so I started with determining our targeted user groups:
OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers)
They manufacture the equipment. They also sell 90% of their equipment and rent the rest to rental companies. They will add the access management hardware onto the equipment. Usually are very large companies with thousands of construction equipment.
Rental Manager
They work for a rental company that rents equipment to construction companies. They speak with customers who need construction equipment and help choose the best equipment for that rental customer. They are in charge of the rental and need to view all companies that have their rented equipment, and when those rentals will be ending. Usually large companies that have hundreds of construction equipment.
Site Manager
They assign operators to equipment that is rented or purchased from rental companies or OEMs. They are in charge of the overall site safety, equipment maintenance and equipment security. They may have multiple construction sites. Usually in charge of 1 – 3 sites at a time where there may be about 10 – 20 construction equipment per site.
Equipment Operator
They operate equipment to complete construction tasks. They only need access to the equipment during work hours. They may work on multiple construction sites at a time. Usually need access to 1 – 5 construction equipment per site. Most operators are operating the same type of equipment, very rarely that they use all types of different equipment.
From here I met with multiple Program Managers (similar to sales managers) who worked very closely with specific user groups. I also conducted customer interviews to understand their needs and pain points, to better inform our product strategy. I was able to speak with program managers and customers who represented the top 3 user groups, however I was unable to speak with the equipment operators during these sessions.
Here were my findings:
OEM
They want access management hardware on their equipment because their customers have been asking for this.
They like the idea of having this on the equipment to monitor their employee logins and deter theft.
They do not want to be manually assigning codes to the equipment, they would like an API to complete this for them.
They are not looking for a software solution but an API solution that will allow their fleet management system to talk to the access management hardware.
Rental Manager
They want access management to allow them to disable rented equipment when the rental is over or if the renter has not paid the bill.
They want to assign their employees to construction equipment so they can perform maintenance tasks.
They want to see how often their rented equipment is used (accessed) during the rental for billing purposes.
They want to assign their employees (service technicians) to the machines at their warehouse to do regular maintenance on machines so they are ready to be rented.
Half are looking for a software solution and the others are looking for an API solution that will allow their rental management system to talk to the access management hardware.
Site Manager
They want to be able to lock down sites after working hours to deter theft.
They want access management to allow them to view operator logs.
See who accessed equipment.
When and for how long.
Was the same person logged in to different equipment at the same time.
They will be adding and removing operators regularly.
They want the access management to be an all in one solution that allows them to see their site with operators, equipment, run utilization reports.
They want this solution to be mobile friendly.
They dislike their current rental software and are open to new options.
COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
We also conducted a competitive analysis to assess the strengths and shortcomings of our competitors.
We discovered that the top competitor had a software solution that branched off into three different products. Each product was customized to the needs and wants for most user groups mentioned above.
SOLUTION IDEAS
With this research, I was able to brainstorm with our Lead Developer 3 ideas:
Idea 1
Create an API that integrates Access Management with customer’s rental software
Idea 2
Create an Access Management feature to our current fleet management software that allows existing customers to add operators to equipment. Will not integrate with customer’s rental software.
Idea 3
Create a rental software that allows users to create rentals, add equipment to those rentals and assign operators to the equipment. Also, allow users to view maintenance schedules for equipment, complete maintenance, and view equipment utilization reports.
We then brought these ideas to our stakeholders.
We explained that if it was decided to use our current platform and have access management as a feature for current users (Idea 2), this would eliminate the opportunity of selling just the access management as a stand-alone product (which is what most rental companies and OEMs were requesting).
We also mentioned that out of the three user groups, two would like to see the final product as an API that integrates with their current software (Idea 1). This generated a discussion with the development and engineering leads who determined that it would take a lot longer to develop and would push out our project deadline by a year. This solution however would not be the preferred solution of the Site Manager as they do not like their current fleet management software.
Idea 3 was looking like a pretty great option however the stakeholders were against segregating our current platform into a more user-centered approach. They were nervous about current customer adoption and if they payout would be worth it in the long haul. Idea 3 also had an estimate of a longer development time that would not be feasible in our current deadline.
STAKEHOLDER DECISION
So it was decided to create an Access Management feature to our current fleet management software (Idea 2), which allowed existing customers to add operators to equipment. New customers would have to purchase the whole fleet management system to get access to this feature.
We agreed on this solution as it met the goal we were trying to achieve and was determined to be the quickest development solution.
EXPLORATION AND DESIGN
With that decision made we were able to start exploring our user flows.
USER FLOW
Through our research, we determined that we had two drastically different goals for our users. For the OEM and Rental Company, they would need the ability to separate their customer’s equipment from their current equipment inventory. As for the Site Managers, they were only concerned with seeing their equipment and the operators attached to them.
This led us to design two different experiences. Below are the first set of wire-frames designed for the original Access Management dashboard.
WIREFRAMES
OEM/RENTAL COMPANY A.M. DASHBOARD
SITE MANAGER A.M. DASHBOARD
I had originally designed these wire-frames as the software living in it's own portal hence having a different navigation structure. The collapsed menu allowed users to view the dashboard which is presented on those above screens, the utilization statistics (expiring codes, incorrect equipment logins, and multiple operator logins), editing their user profile, a help section and log out.
The major differences between the two UI’s above, were the “Rental Accounts” section. For the OEM/Rental Company we had the “Rental Account” section that allowed users to group equipment based on a rental profile. This allowed OEM’s and Rental companies to stay organized with equipment that had been put on rent and allow them to take inventory quickly on equipment that was still available. The reason why we did not do the same for the Site Manager interface was that our research showed site managers were responsible for one "construction" site. Since they were in charge of one site, they did not need to make “site groups”. However, once we are able to start user testing I will be looking to see if our research was correct.
EXAMPLE OF RENTAL ACCOUNT SELECTION ON OEM/RENTAL COMPANY DASHBOARD
We then explored the use cases for both experiences: OEM/Rental Company and Site Managers, and ran into some challenges:
How did we want to list the table actions? Were icons enough? Would they translate correctly?
How did equipment show up in the equipment table?
Was it possible to delete equipment?
How would users add operators to equipment quickly? Could they do bulk upload? Did they have to add all of their operators at the time of creating a rental?
What were the utilization statistics users wanted to see?
How different did we want the user experience to be in regards of the UI design?
The Lead Developer and I started working closely on this project, and stumbled upon these questions. I was able to answer the UI concerns but regarding the technical questions, we set up a meeting with the stakeholders3 so we continued down the correct path. Rather than assuming certain requirements. Our stakeholders greatly appreciated these questions as they hadn't reviewed them as thoroughly as was assumed.
Moving forward the UI’s were revised and I was able to present the below high fidelity prototypes to my team.
HIGH-FIDELITY
My first mock up was a design of an Access Management Portal that could be separate from the current ONE i3 asset managing software as our original requirements were that Access Management needed to be a stand alone product. The design above demonstrates a users dashboard after logging in to the Access Management software and seeing their sites (later changed to rental accounts), operators and equipment (would be shown below the operator tables). We wanted the user to see their most valuable utilization statistics quickly and allow them to deep dive into more information if needed.
We ended up scrapping the idea of having Access Management as a stand alone product. Therefor the interface would have to live in the current ONE i3 asset managing software and use the existing components. One of the components I had the most trouble accepting was the horizontal navigation. I was against this as the top navigation was looking extremely cluttered. Also previous user testing had shown that users navigate better when presented with options listed vertically rather than horizontally. I had proposed a left hand navigation that could be collapsed and expanded, however since this change would affect the whole ONE i3 asset management system not only just the Access Management UI, many stakeholders were concerned that we would upset our current users. I was told this idea would be put into our product backlog and we could investigate it in the future.
FINAL
The final design for an OEM or Rental Company
The final prototype for an OEM or Rental Company
The final prototype for a Site Manager
