Sage Mode is developed for Oil and Gas Engineers to monitor the Advanced Process Control (APC) status across different units in a single platform.
Project
User
Pain Point
- Difficult for higher management level to get all information for 10 units performances.
- It was time consuming to gain information needed.
- There is no proper platform for the engineers to retrieve data to perform their task.
- Manually record their data in excel file and this could reduce their performance and efficiency.
- Difficult to for engineers from different unit to view others’ refinery status to make their own planning.
What I did
- User Interview
- Sitemap
- Wireframe
- Prototype
- Usability Testing
Research
Goals
Below are the areas that I’d like to explore during the user research process.
- What are the information that are useful to the users.
- What are their main pain point of the process of monitoring their APC performances.
Methodologies
Evaluation of the current process of monitoring APC performances across 10 units. Analysed data and process to discover what information to be inculde and display in the dashboard. In-depth user interviews with all representative from 10 units to learn about their journey.Â
User Interviews
Interviews Synopsis
To get the full picture of their process, I interviewed 10 users from 10 units to understand the flow, their struggles and needs. Below are some insights and highlights from the interview:
Tedious way for management to make decision as they have to go through different system/ source to get the information needed
Engineers have trouble to get the information as the information is all over the place
Hard for engineers to make planning for their refinery.
Empathy Map
After creating my persona, I was able to create an emapthy map that shows in-depth what does the users actually feel and their thoughts.
Use Scenario
Next in the process I was able to address two biggest pain point moments that happen during the process. As usually they need to make an adhoc decision, I decided that having a clear information in a single dashboard can make the decision making faster.
As a Management,
I want to be able to view all information in a single page.
So that, I can make decision making without gone through multiple sources.
As an Engineer,
I want to be able to view and gain important information in one platform.
So that, I can monitor the status and makes better planning for my refinery process.
Ideation
Features
When I finally understand the user, the time has arrived to brainstorm on the potential feature that should be designed during this project.Â
Must Haves
- Scorecards showing figures for different parameters (parameters name, actual value, target value, unit)
- Bar charts for all parameters that displays for all units.
- Filter for Year, Month and OPU.
- Map ( OPU’s indicator, actual value, OPU’s name)
- Horizontal bar chart/ Line chart/ Table
Nice to Haves
- Highlights section
- Drilldown function on charts
- Â Selected OPU name display
- Donut chart for project status
- Project list ( year, project name, progress, status)
Sitemap
One of the challenges of this project is to cater all 10 units requirement in a single platform. To do that successfully, I needed to examine what are the requirement to determine where the features would be easier and make sense to the user to discovered.
Wireframe
The next step in my process was creating a wireframe. Before settling on a more detailed version, I created a low fidelity wireframe for me to get a view of the design structure. During this stage, I explored a couple of existing design on internet to get the idea of what will suits the dashboard.
UI Kit
Color Palette
Fonts
Inter Bold 24 This is a Header
Inter Semi Bold 20 This is a Sub Header
Inter Regular 12 This is a Body and Button text
Navigation
Buttons
General
Prototype & Test
Usability Testing
I tested the prototype with 10 users to see how the design would benefits them and their overall experience of using the new dashoard.
Conclusion
It’s quite overwhelmed at start as this project covers more than 1 unit. The research part took quite a long time as I need to cater requirements from all 10 units. All of them have different request and needs. After calmly gather all the information, I tried to find something similar among their request and fit it in one page to created a dashboard that could be view by all OPU. At the same time, I tried to put in the features that is not used by all units but significance to others. I believe created a design that makes easier for them to make adhoc decision or planning could eliminate some of their struggles.