Project Vision
HydroSoft aims to provide a comprehensive SaaS solution for efficiently optimizing water safety operations, enhancing efficiency, quality, and scalability while ensuring regulatory compliance for water service operators. It facilitates seamless scheduling, customizable notice workflows, and data collection, catering to diverse client needs across various regulatory jurisdictions. Unlike competing solutions, HydroSoft is tailored to serve hundreds of municipalities, enabling HydroCorp to efficiently deliver quality services at scale.
Key SaaS Features
Search & Reporting: Robust search functionalities and customizable reporting tools accessible via the cloud.
Workforce Forecasting, Scheduling, and Appointments: Cloud-based scheduling and appointment management for seamless collaboration.
Notice Management: Customizable notice templates and routing capabilities accessible from anywhere.
Data Collection: Cloud-based data collection in the field with offline capabilities for remote locations.
Test and Inspection Submission (3rd Parties): Facilitation of test and inspection submissions by third-party testers through secure online portals.
Payments: Secure payment processing functionalities integrated into the SaaS platform.
Inventory Management: Cloud-based inventory tracking and management features accessible anytime, anywhere.
Key SaaS Features
Develop a scalable and secure SaaS platform hosted on reliable cloud infrastructure to ensure high availability and data security.
Implement user-friendly interfaces optimized for web and mobile devices to provide seamless access to HydroSoft's features.
Integrate robust backend functionalities to support efficient data management, processing, and real-time collaboration.
Ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations regarding data privacy and security.
The Team
The core team is composed by 25 members including business stakeholders, industry/business experts, project manager/product owner, business analysts, software architects, developers, testers and me as the principal product/UX designer.
My Role
As Principal UX Designer and UX Lead for HydroSoft, I spearheaded the design of a SaaS platform aimed at managing complex operations, data collection, and reporting for safe water operations, including Cross Connection Control programs. My contributions encompassed strategic UX leadership, team mentorship, platform scalability enhancement, and strategic SaaS transformation.
Accomplishments:
Innovative UX Strategy: Led the development of an innovative UX strategy embedding user-centric design principles deeply within HydroSoft's development process, enhancing usability and satisfaction.
UX Framework: Championed the creation of a sophisticated UX framework synthesizing user-centric principles and modular UI components to streamline design initiatives and support product growth.
Team Leadership & Mentorship: Handpicked and mentored a UX team, fostering innovation and best practice adherence, resulting in streamlined production processes and accelerated development cycles.
Enhanced Platform Scalability: Led design initiatives to enhance HydroSoft's scalability, enabling adaptation to various operational scales and scopes, broadening the platform's market reach.
Strategic SaaS Transformation: Instrumental in transforming HydroCorp’s business application into a versatile SaaS product, tailoring the platform to serve broader markets and opening new revenue streams.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Served as the principal liaison between UX, product management, and engineering teams, ensuring seamless integration of user experience principles throughout the product lifecycle.
Research & Analysis
I planned and conducted the research strategy. Qualitative and quantitave data was gathered through surveys and interviews to potentials users.
Through our research we identified user needs/requirements, usage patterns, etc.
As part of the effort we documented business processes so that we could easily identify pain points and opportunity areas.
Analysis & Design Workshops
Throughout the design process, I facilitated extensive analysis and conducted immersive design workshops with key business stakeholders and team members. This collaborative approach allowed us to delve deeply into the intricacies of HydroSoft's functionalities and user requirements, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the project landscape. By leveraging my expertise in UX design methodologies, I guided the workshops to uncover insights, elicit feedback, and identify the most effective design solutions. These workshops served as invaluable forums for aligning stakeholder expectations, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and refining our design approach iteratively. Through this hands-on engagement with stakeholders and team members, I ensured that the design direction remained rooted in user-centric principles, strategic objectives, and actionable insights, ultimately driving the success of HydroSoft as a leading SaaS platform for water safety operations management.
Design Patterns and Guidelines
As part of the design phase I created a design system to ensure consistency throughout all designs. The skin of the different design elements was later replaced once the Firm's new brand image was available
Prototyping
Once the user journeys were defined, I worked on initial wireframes to try out different approaches. For 2 to 3 of them I created clickable prototypes so that the specific process could be tested early by the busines users. That way we could iterate and improve designs before presenting them to business stakeholders and then share them to the development team.
Feature Release artifacts
As part of the design phase I created a design system to ensure consistency throughout all designs. The skin of the different design elements was later replaced once the Firm's new brand image was available
Key Results
On-Time Delivery of MVP Features: Successfully delivered the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) features within the designated timeline, ensuring timely market entry and user validation.
Reduced Time-to-Market: Streamlined development processes and enhanced collaboration between design, development, and product management teams, resulting in a significant reduction in time-to-market for new features and enhancements.
Improved User Engagement Metrics: Implemented UX-driven design enhancements resulting in improved user engagement metrics, such as increased user retention rates, higher session durations, and enhanced user satisfaction scores.
Enhanced User Adoption: Leveraged user research insights and iterative design methodologies to enhance product usability and intuitiveness, leading to increased user adoption rates and reduced onboarding friction.
Alignment with Product Roadmap Objectives: Ensured alignment of design efforts with the product roadmap objectives, focusing on delivering impactful features and enhancements that address user needs and business goals.
Positive User Feedback and NPS Scores: Solicited user feedback through usability testing, surveys, and feedback loops, resulting in positive user sentiment and improved Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
Continuous UX Design Innovation: Fostered a culture of design innovation and excellence within the team, promoting the exploration of new design patterns, technologies, and methodologies to push the boundaries of HydroSoft's user experience.
Users Feedback after Production Release
"I'm truly impressed with the revamped HydroSoft platform! It's incredibly intuitive and user-friendly. The addition of new features has made my workflow much smoother."
"The latest updates to HydroSoft have exceeded my expectations! The improved user experience has been game-changers for our team."
"I can't say enough about how fantastic the new HydroSoft application is! It's a huge leap forward from the previous version and has greatly improved our productivity."
"Hats off to the HydroSoft team for creating such a phenomenal tool! The new application has exceeded my expectations and has become an essential part of our workflow. Well done!"