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Embracing Continuous Incremental Progress

  • Writer: Curtis Blair
    Curtis Blair
  • Jul 3
  • 4 min read

Overview

Continuous Research methodology provided structure to establish the project scope, goals, and roadmap, aligning stakeholders' expectations with technology capabilities for developing a community knowledge repository.


I conducted research and design activities revealing project obstacles and usability issues preventing community engagement. I utilized heuristic evaluations, workflow audits, user ecosystem mapping, and task analysis to identify process improvements and create iterate mockups for design critiques.



Client

United States Space Force, Delta 10/ 10FDS, Space Domain



Process

Continuous Incremental Progress and Refinement


Disclaimer: 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.



Problem Statement

The Space Wiki project aimed to establish a community of practices by improving user engagement by solving usability issues that prevented migrating to a centralized knowledge repository. 


Results

Shifting to a generational perspective utilizing continuous incremental progress bridged the missing improvement structure needed to align current issues to influencing future design iterations, providing parallel improvements for current  UI obstacles with the need for UX research. 


Future Recommendations

  • Continuous user outreach to address real-world problems and refine wiki capabilities

  • Craft intuitive platform features that are easy to implement and adjust content

  • Start ROI metrics now; changing or prioritizing other measurements later is okay

Role

Lead UX Designer

UX Skills

UX Strategy

Continuous Research

Service Design

Heuristic Evaluations

Workflow Audits

Task Analysis

Ecosystem Mapping

User Interviews

Tools

MediaWiki

Figma/ Figjam

Jira/ Confluence

Teams

Whiteboards






Design Process


Challenge

The challenges encountered revolve around a launched MVP with few prior user design considerations, sparse documentation, and vague success metrics. Our goal was to develop a community of practices, and we focused our efforts on improving engagement by improving the platform's overall usability.




My Responsibilities

  • As the Lead UX Designer, I collaborated with stakeholders, project managers, experts, colleagues, and others to develop an UX Roadmap prioritizing parallel research and development progress.

  • I coordinated with dev colleagues to implement requested features, platform updates, and researched extensions to augment platform limitations.

  • I synthesized user interviews ,audit results, secondary research, and design iteration defining improvement priorities, ROI metrics, and usability enhancements.





Initial Tasks

Discovery, Audits, Design Evaluation

  • Interviewed stakeholders and department heads, collecting perspectives and vision for MVP

  • Established secondary research to understand the goals of MVP launch, compile best practices, and set expectations for tje community of practice

  • Conducted a document audit and aligned findings with backlogged technical capabilities, limitations, and known issues



Status Quo

Defining project scope and expectations

  • Examine the current state of the MPV and the project’s status by auditing PoAMS and evaluating sprint projections from backlogged tickets

  • Defined project efforts into four categories: Project Management, Backend Development, Frontend Development(Wiki 1.0), and UX Design(Wiki 2.0)

  • Performed an Unstructured Cognitive Walkthrough with SME, revealing usability issues, engagement concerns, and desired features




Future Scouting

Desired Vision, Missions, and Goals

  • Compiled colleague’s discussion about MVP purpose into an elevator pitch

  • Examined pitches with vision and mission conversation to develop goals

  • Socialized concepts to identify targeted user base and develop project champion




Project Management: UX Roadmap

Grassroots to Community of Practice

Parallel efforts to improve current wiki version 1.0 through backend and frontend incremental improvements influencing research and design iterations for wiki 2.0.


Parallel Improvement Tracks

  • Project Management - Improvement Plans and Brand

  • Backend Development - Pipeline integration

  • Frontend Development - UI improvements for Wiki 1.0

  • UX Design - Research and design iterations for Wiki 2.0



Brand and Style Guides

A strategy for parallel efforts is to establish community engagement by socializing capabilities and providing needed features.


Brand Identity

  • Establish brand identity by socializing purpose, value, and real-world benefits through use cases that champion a shared knowledge repository.

​Style Guide

  • Establish style guides for typography, color schemes, and visual motifs to establish foundations for implementing the Codex Design system.



Backend Development

Reframe mindset to “Now and Generational” incremental improvements.

  • PoAMS aligned to Wiki 1.0 as UI Improvements and Wiki 2.0 as UX Design Iterations.

​

Reframing Expectations

  • MVP Progress incorporates feedback and adapts to user needs and desired features

  • Platform is transitioning from a File System to a Knowledge Repository

  • Authoritative Publishing is developing Collaborative Community Practitioners




Frontend Development (Wiki 1.0)

Efforts for immediate incremental UI improvements influencing future research and design solutions.


​​Heuristics Evaluation

  • Incremental enhancements include improving navigation, wiki layout, and visual appeal to prioritize critical UI issues and backlog minor UX task issues.

  • Incorporating design standards for tier 1 improvements for visual communication while uncovering tier 2 UI usability issues to prepare for tier 3 UX research for wiki 2.0






UX Design (Wiki 2.0)

Conducted guerilla usability testing, collected feedback on critical usability issues, and synthesized results into design mockups.

  • Audit for platform features, ease of implementation, and intuitive interface

  • Created design iterations for the Global Navigation Bar, Footer, and Layout Templates

  • Review the obstacles for platform tasks (process and procedures) and user journey (workflow)




Pivot: Community Outreach

Pivot collaboration efforts from a single Champion to seeking Collaborators solving multiple relevant problems across a shared domain.


​Recruitment Pool

  • Utilize current power users to increase the recruitment pool, uncover how they are using the platform, and incorporate their workarounds into feature improvements.


Wiki Team Expertise

  • Coordinated with Departments to assist with migration plans and initial setup, offering workflow optimizations that allowed us to collect user observations.



Transition Brief for new Design Lead

Before leaving the project, I compiled material for the new design lead, providing an overview of the project's goals, progress, and potential next tasks.

  • Review and refine documentation in Confluence and update the archive platform. 

  • Debrief leadership and team on current efforts, progress, and subsequent actions.

  • Created onboarding memos for past achievements, current efforts, and future recommendations.




Impact

Continuous Research provided structure for parallel development tracks to improve the current UI and prepare for UX research and design refinement activities.


Future Recommendations

  • The wiki platform already solves a massive problem, information silos; the goal now is solving process and technical obstacles that prevent transitioning to the wiki solution.

  • Embrace incremental improvements using continuous research to solve current technology limitations and task issues.

  • ROI metrics are a place to start, so it is okay to change or prioritize other measurements later.

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