THOMAS KLEPL

UX Design LeadInformation ArchitectInteraction DesignerVisual Designer

Designing enterprise software poses unique challenges due to the inherent complexity and configurability of this product class. With a blank slate in front of me, I approached this monumental challenge with a vision emphasizing ease of use, consistency and freshness.

With 4 products in the short-term road map and more to follow, a systems approach was necessary. I broke down the design work into a number of major areas including:

• Understanding the Users
• Understanding the Business and Market
• Creating a high-level Information Architecture and Navigation Structure
• Creating a comprehensive Design System of standard UI Components
• Creating User Stories and Scenarios
• Designing Screens and Workflows

As the lead of a very small design practice within the company, I leaned heavily on others for their knowledge and experience especially when it came to understanding the users and the business problems our software was meant to solve. In practice, this meant I was asking a ton of questions and iterating daily on a range of different design ideas. I also engaged with colleagues who had already established relationships with customers to help with user testing and validation of design hypotheses.

Collaboration with the development team leads was another conscious and important effort. Together, we designed and built a suite of UI components that enabled the rest of the team to rapidly build functional pages with consistent behaviour and appearance.

Images available upon request.