Designing a responsive multi-device and multi-platform webmail application in an agile UX process flow
A talk by Jennifer Sanchez and David Ruiz and David Ruiz
Orange, the international telecommunications operator, provides a webmail application for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The current application, used by more than 2 millions of customers, had to evolve technically and functionally as to address new requirements. Moreover, it had to be accessible from anywhere, anytime and on any device (either smartphones, tablets or web) adapting content and functionalities depending on usage contexts and user needs.
On top of the technical and design challenges, the time to market constraints necessitate to engage and align the whole organisation – more than 40 people involved – to meet the planning objective.
To achieve these goals, Attoma joined forces together with the Orange D&U (Design&Usability) B2B team, to set up an iterative and collaborative approach including the marketing and development teams for working hand in hand all along the project.
- Information architecture, UI design, graphical specifications and graphic assets being delivered for each sprint (1 month)
- Constant UX design support and direct contact with development teams
- Biweekly reviews with marketing teams
- User testing
Wireframe handmade sketches were used to share vision and iterate with the teams. Iterations and scenarios have been documented to keep history of the design work and decision making process.
This 24 months constant and collective work enabled to increase the marketing and development teams’ awareness of the user centred design approach and its benefits. Simultaneously, the use of responsive design has shown its strength and how powerful it can be when dealing with multi-device and multi-platform delivery.
Regarding measurable improvement, the first series of user tests have shown a significant enhancement of customer satisfaction and usage simplicity. A three-months Friendly User Tests (FUT) session is planned in April 2014, therefore, more advanced results are expected to be available by the time of the EuroIA conference.
Jennifer Sanchez and David Ruiz
After graduating from a Masters in Design at the Sorbonne University, Jennifer worked as a freelance Information Designer until she joined Attoma, a service design agency based in Paris, Milan and Berlin, in 2009. There, she provides her expertise in designing multi-device customer services, as well as, in design project management. Jennifer provides major design support working upstream and using methodological design processes in order to ensure an outstanding satisfaction of user’s needs. Whether it is for the conception of dynamic travel information on public transport screens, paper phone bills or mobile applications, the goal remains the same: to help define the right vision for the best possible customer experience. Jennifer currently works with the Orange Design & User Experience B2B team.
David Ruiz
David Ruiz is Lead Designer at Orange in the Design & User Experience division, tasked with designing innovative services for the B2B and B2B2C market. David has a wide international experience spanning regulatory affairs, large customer account management & innovative project leadership. This experience allows to preserve a holistic point of view when designing the right services and experiences for Orange users through user-centric service design processes. An engineering graduate from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, David strives to make business, strategic and technical stakeholders aware of the benefits of an early adoption of the U-C design methodology within the innovative chain.
