< back to projects

The Hub Launch

Project Overview

Client: BT Wholesale
Project Duration: 3 months
Role: Product Designer
Tools Used: Figma - Prototyping, Mural - Discovery, Planning
Central Hub Team Responsibilities: Homepage, sales & marketing, my profile, administrator settings, and front-facing pages of the site.

Problem Statement
The primary objective was to move away from the outdated Business Zone platform and introduce The Hub. The new platform needed to be more intuitive and user-friendly, addressing the functional issues and bugs prevalent in the Business Zone. Additionally, the design had to comply with the modern branding standards of BT.

Approximately 95% of Business Zone users were desktop users.

Project Summary

BT Wholesale aimed to transition from their legacy platform, Business Zone, to a new, more user-friendly platform called "The Hub." This platform would enable internet resellers to manage their customers' products, place new orders, and raise system faults to BT Wholesale. The goal was to align more closely with BT's modern branding while addressing usability issues present in the previous system.

Research

Due to limited access to end-users, the research primarily employed qualitative methods, such as interviews with resellers, to gather insights about The Hub.

Business Zone, BT Wholesale's legacy platform, which was to be phased out for the Hub.

Hub dashboard

Findings
  • User Interface (UI): Customers were impressed with the new platform's UI and found it user-friendly.
  • Functionality: Ensuring correct functionality was crucial as the previous platform, Business Zone, had numerous bugs.
  • Market Niche: Competitor analysis was minimal due to BT Wholesale's niche market.
  • User Personas: A broad spectrum of user personas emerged, ranging from daily users of Business Zone to those who used it infrequently (every six months).

Wins

  • Customers provided positive feedback on the UI and overall user experience during the research phase.
  • User-Friendly Interface: Successfully created a more intuitive and user-friendly platform compared to Business Zone.

Learns

Technological Constraints

  • Salesforce Limitations: Initial designs envisioned by designers were often not executable due to Salesforce's front-end restrictions. For instance, the dashboard was planned to have four dynamic components pulling data from the backend, but only one was possible due to technological constraints.
  • Compromises on Design System: Had to work with out-of-the-box components instead of BT’s Arc design system, impacting the UI quality.

Project Management

  • Launch Delays and Dependencies: The project's scale meant it relied heavily on other teams, causing launch delays and logistical challenges.
  • Limited Research: Research is a designer's bread and butter, the research phase was limited due to restricted access to end-users, impacting the depth of insights.

KCI template creation

Objective: Mitigate the inconsistencies in the various emails sent out by BT by defining strict design principles for developers to follow. Due to my experience as an email developer I was able to communicate this effectively in a way developers would understand.

Outcome

An increase in email consistency and reduction in developer mistakes/confusions due to the strict design guideliens that were set.

Reduced email phishing anxiety that users were facing due to the poor quality in previous emails.