Industrial grading of produce is the backbone of a healthy food economy. Ellips develops first-class grading software that inspects produce on size, weight and internal and external defects. After years of feature-push and double digit growth, complexity of the application grew exponentially.
Design a standardized journey made for future growth. Simplify the journey for most users, extend it for power users. Key challenges to address:
Expansive complexity is rarely necessary: it's a sign of no clear strategy, mental models or focused journey. Feature push exacerbates this problem by iterating over a flawed journeys with one-offs. Identifying patterns is key to discover main journeys in the software.
The features of the application were tightly interwoven, creating overlap and ambiguity between tasks, significantly increasing the perceived complexity of the application. Categorizing and grouping features to establish clear user journeys was done through affinity and customer journey mapping.
The legacy application already had a defined hierarchy of functionality both enforced in code and in mental model. However a clear visual language was missing to communicate that hierarchy to the end user. Effective design plays a key role in communicating complex structures and hierarchies. Establishing a visual language and re-usable ux patterns the application becomes more readable and predictable.
One of the core improvements: carefully distinct between primary and secondary information. Disclose primary, hide secondary information. 20% of the features are used 80% of the time.
Implementing a redesign of this magnitude is a multi-year project that requires coordination and documentation to be executed effectively. The design system and visual language have been documented thoroughly in a simple yet effective way.
The deliverable of the project was a well-documented new design system and visual language. Initial response of end-users was very positive and instill trust in the chosen direction. From early user-tests the result users where significantly more efficient in executing provided tasks.
