Practice Head at UXReactor

Guardhat

"Completed the entire project in just under 8 months and delivered an end-to-end experience that delighted our customer "

Summary

I joined UXReactor as the Practice Head, responsible for leading a design team of 18 individuals. This team consisted of three design managers, one research manager, and 15 individual contributors across three continents: the US, Colombia, and India. My first project at UXReactor was with Guardhat, where I led a team of eight designers. Collaborating with executives and my team, I established Guardhat as a user-centered company. We focused on building experiences tailored to the key personas identified through user research.

Mr role: Design head for my practice and Chief Experience Officer for the client
Duration: 8 months

Team: 8 people

Challenge

Guardhat wanted to move away from being an IoT company building devices to building a platform for IoT devices so Device Manufacturers can easily integrate and onboard their devices and use the platform capabilities to provide solutions to their customers. However, Guardhat didn't have a design team, nor they had expertise in building user-centric products.

About Guardhat

Company size: 51-200 employees

33 on LinkedIn Includes members with current employer listed as Guardhat Inc., including part-time roles.

Headquarters: Detroit, Michigan

Founded: 2014

Specialties: Industrial Safety, Personal Safety Wearable, Enterprise worker connectivity, IoT, Wearables, Platform, SaaS, IIoT, People-Centric, Worker Safety, Software, and Industrial Technology

Reinvinventing Guardhat

Reinventing Guardgat

As a Chief Experience Officer for Guardhat, I worked directly with the execs from Guardhat. I also managed my team and ensured we focused on innovation and delivering a great experience. My team delivered this project the entire project in less than 8 months and provided a design strategy that built the foundation for a $170B market opportunity.

Strategy

I utilized the product-led growth strategy for this project and centered the entire experience around key personas identified for the platform. I implemented a user-centric approach to design the product from scratch. This approach involved Phase I, which focused on research, and Phase II, which concentrated on iterative design through design and validation.

I facilitated several workshops with Guardhat executives, including the CEO, CTO, and marketing, sales, and delivery team representatives, to establish a user-centric vision for the product. During the workshop, I helped define a product focus that my team could deliver in a very tight timeline of six months.

Outcome

Established product foundation for a $170B opportunity market (by 2026)

Guardhat will now be able to compete in the market by offering a connected platform to increase the adoption rate of device manufacturers, which will further empower Device manufacturers to compete, expand their market share, and create profit.

Guardhat self-serve experience will reduce the time & cost required by the solutions team to onboard devices and the effort and time for the sales team to complete lead conversion.

Aligned the team on a common vision

Aligned the business product vision and strategy by planning and executing strategic workshops and validating concepts with real users. Collaborated with the sales and commercial team to define a pricing model and strategy with a user-centric focus.

Created a design foundation for the IoT platform

Transformed Guardhat from a hardware company to a user-centered Platform as a Service.

Increased cross-functional collaboration by reducing silos and aligning teams from all levels to focus on a user-first design process from research to development.
Established a user-centric approach to solving problems.

Established a Design System

Provided visual concepts and design systems that serve as a single source of truth for the product and a singular design language to guide its further design and development.   Furthermore, the design system will help with:

Reducing time to market
Scalability
Quality of experience to build consistent products
Efficiency

Established a Competitive Experience Advantage

Analyzed where Guardhat stands against its competitors and identified design principles to transform experiences to compete with the market.

A best-in-class experience designed for two key personas in the Device Manufacturing entity with user-validated concepts.

Created a seamless and convenient experience with accessibility across all modalities

Users can access the product or service from different devices and through different modes of interaction, such as through a web browser, a mobile app, or a tablet app.

Helps:

Increase reach and accessibility to a wider audience
Improve user experience and productivity
Ability to collect data and insights from multiple sources
It also allows customers to use the product or service most conveniently, driving engagement and usage.

Key learnings

This was a significantly complex project, with most of the stakeholders spread across the world. Reflecting back, here are my key learnings

Align design decisions with business goals.
Communication is key: The more, the better.
Build enough Cusson for the team, as things may change as the project evolves.
Establish a clear focus and vision for the team.
Storytelling is key; every design should be tied to a story from the user's perspective.