Category
Customer
Postion
UX Research & UI Design
US Space Force
Lead UX/UI Designer
Integrating systems to provide operators with visual overviews of live data to track, plan, and execute launch missions
Fragmented data sources present a significant challenge to efficient launch planning and range operation preparations. Current processes often involve teams expending valuable time and resources manually gathering, verifying, and consolidating critical information dispersed across disparate systems.
The abundance of physical documents, excel sheets, and legacy software system pushed to its limit, produced inefficient workflows, high error rates, and delays. The Space Force acknowledged the need for an modern integrated system.
User Research
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Continuous discovery with actual users
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Stakeholder engagement and collaboration
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Interviews and design workshops
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Research synthesis and workflow optimization
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Domain Knowledge Research
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Feature Prioritization
User Interface Design
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Design System development
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UI components and patterns
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Accessibility
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Information Architecture
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Conceptual Prototypes
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Rapid Prototyping
Disclaimer: Due to government security and NDA, I am not able to disclose unpublicized details about this project.
The nature of this work is confidential, and per DoD compliance, the case study contains fictionalized data and omits project details. The case study presents a summary of my experience and design process.
Project Overview
The project's design strategy emphasized research to integrate multiple data sources into a single platform, allowing operators to quickly identify assets and planning details for mission operations. ​
Problems
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Multiple data systems with differing procedures
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Siloed data, knowledge gaps, and manual processes
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Legacy hardware and software out of date
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Complicated processes to plan, share, & update operations
Solutions
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Automated data collection and integration
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Scalable cloud-based infrastructure
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Agile process through Extreme Programming
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Workflow optimization for DoD processes
Outcomes
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Dashboard visualizations and workflows
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Proven dependability and performance improvements
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Increase release schedule and UI optimization
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Operational platform expanding Range capabilities
Proof of Concept
Curious about agile development and data visualization, the government initiated a contract with KBR and Orbital Labs to develop a centralized source of truth offering an overview of asset status and capabilities. They needed proven results of data integration and development adaptability to produce a platform capable of adjusting to mission needs.
Research finding
Focus on adaptability and collaboration
Strategy
​The strategy emerged from interviews and workshops with stakeholders and operators to identify mission objectives, technical limitations, and expected obstacles.
Facilitation activities aligned expectations and produced a shared vision, which shaped the design methodology to use a continuous research approach for frequent user engagement.
Integrated data sources to manage range assets to improve operational planning, scheduling, and launching operations
Mission-Drive
IRIS enables users to view critical changes in real-time, receive immediate mission notifications, and effortlessly schedule mandatory tasks and events directly within the application.​
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IRIS delivers substantial value to our customers by utilizing the Department of Defense (DoD) Enterprise Services provider, Platform One. Our application is deployed with a Continuous Authority to Operate (c-ATO) and a cyber-approved Certificate to Field (CtF), ensuring compliance and security. These partnerships result in an Agile environment utilizing Extreme Programming methodology to produced frequent software releases providing continuous improvements and enhancement to operator’s workflows with minimal disruption of service.
Through robust connections, IRIS efficiently collects and presents essential data, empowering stakeholders to track and plan missions effectively. The application connects to multiple external databases and continuously integrates data into user workflows, providing the required information at the right time, which significantly enhances operational readiness.
Achievements
Reduced Operations Time Finding Critical Information
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Consolidates and integrates data from multiple sources, providing a single source for launch-related information
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Automatically integrating datasets to provide enhance situational awareness of operational and asset’s status
Improved Operational Efficiency
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Real-time data visualizations and performance metrics provide operational insight and enable informed decision-making
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Dedicated dashboards for Day of Launch (DoL) countdown procedures and real-time asset status monitoring
Integrated Scheduling with Workforce Management
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Built-in event scheduling and conflict resolution tools to integrated crew mission assignment
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Automating tracking crew certification and training status
Our Process for Success
Utilizing participatory design to better understand the root problem and knowledge domain, which integrates multiple perspectives, disciplines, and communities to generate diverse solutions that move the entire system forward.
Collaborative Discovery
Engaging with communities and combining multiple fields of thoughtful research with design.
Our foundation for developer engagement by having our dev team participating in research activities and design iterations providing technical insights into complex issues. Continuous design efforts keep the team informed of needed functionality, while provide space to explore known limitations and potential obstacles for meeting operator needs.
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Rapid Iteration
Scrum approach for team structure and interactions for meetings, collaborations, and paired programming.
Our strategic approach for prioritizing feedback to develop solutions to user problems that scale across the entire platform. Weekly design critiques allows users to explore and iterate on concepts to optimize interactions. Aligning business needs with user request assist with roadmap projections and sprint planning efforts for providing scalable improvements.
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Continuous Improvement
No rigid structure: experimental mindset to utilize tools to valid concepts and move projects forward.
Our adaptable process pivots to changing business and user needs through incremental changes that test concepts and validate solutions to complex issues. We collect ongoing feedback through routine meetings, design reviews, and service desk requests to identify trends, analyze responses, and then develop concepts to overcome operator frustrations.
Business Impacts
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Showcased ROI of UX Design demonstrating how to conduct Agile in the DoD
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Reduced developer workload, established feature solutions, and prevented rework
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Aligned stakeholders, users, and development team to work towards a shared objective
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Contributed to Team Beskar design methodologies and sharing best practices
User Impacts
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Optimized workflows and integrated tasks, reducing error rates
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Established UI Consistency improving user performance
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Provided a scalable solution and code maintainability
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Expanded range capabilities for further API data integration
What I Learned
Continuous Development - Agile and Extreme Programming provided a means to solves complex problems by engaging with communities and having thoughtful research and design imbedded into development teams producing evidence-based solutions.
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The value of design critiques and cognitive walkthroughs for research refinement
Benefit: normalizes system thinking and optimizing workflows by starting with the desired outcome and working backwards to the starting event of the task.
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The power of communication with stakeholders through brief design artifacts
Benefit: status updates are actually read and perceived as useful as they sufficiently express the team’s progress, efforts, obstacles, and request for assistance.
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The benefits of continuous research through weekly user engagement
Benefit: allows user to explore shared responsibilities which clarifies user intent and expectations leading to novel solutions which reduces re-work.
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The benefits of rapid mockups to validate concepts and to generate feedback
Benefit: provides a place to start, establishes shared visualizations, and permission to explore differences in terminology, processes, and exceptions resulting in understanding and a mutually crafted concept ready for user validation and optimization.
