Focusing on the users and their needs on the way to the big goal, our user experience (UX) team strives to enable seamless experiences with a perfectly tailored toolset. This is especially important for businesses that operate on a global scale because they come with a whole set of unique needs and challenges.
Most of the time, these tools are helpful in an obvious way: it’s clear what problem they were designed to solve. But sometimes it’s the tiny tools that provide the much-needed support without being noticed. In some cases, it’s the previously overlooked little things that get in the way.
Here’s an example of the latter.
The initial spark
Some time ago, during a UX design requirements workshop, one of our clients made a casual comment that they would need to hire more technicians. In response to our inquiry, we learned that the service hotline is manned by highly qualified technicians and that all calls from end clients converge there.
This made us pay attention: was it possible to focus equally on the two user groups, technicians and end customers, and to anticipate the problem in advance? After a few more questions, we came up with the following scenario, which is admittedly somewhat exaggerated to better illustrate the point, but nevertheless quite typical.
The challenge
An investor based in Frankfurt am Main has invested in three solar parks. First thing in the morning, he first checks the status of his investment. He sees the following picture: two of the solar parks are producing a lot of electricity, and the third is producing nothing. From the investor’s point of view, something is wrong. The solar parks were set up at about the same time, so something must be broken, or the technology is not working for some other reason. It’s summer, and bad weather has not been forecast.
He picks up the phone and calls the service hotline. The technicians check the system carefully and report back that everything is OK and working as planned. And indeed, during the day the third solar park also starts producing. The next day the same scenario repeats, and again the day after that. What’s going on?
Ultimately, the explanation was very simple. The two solar parks producing power as intended were in Spain and India. At the time of the investor’s morning check, the sun was shining in Frankfurt, just like in Spain, and in India, it was sunny midday. The third solar park was in Argentina, and it was the dead of night there. Of course, the solar park could only produce properly after sunrise, and at that time it was already the middle of the day in Frankfurt.
The explanation was straightforward, but it didn’t change the fact the issue was real: imagine that investor building more solar parks around the world and having to memorize the day-night cycle for each location. Because of this, it was a very unsatisfactory experience for both the investor and the technicians.
At that point, we asked ourselves the key question: what can we develop to provide helpful support to both user groups and to prevent queries of this or a similar nature in the future?
The solution
In the first step, we created a world map on which the positions of the solar parks were marked. We also placed the course of the sun with day and night areas on top of the world map, naturally calculated based on the actual current position of the sun, so that the curve changes over the year.
However, we went even further and gave the technicians the option of storing topographical features, such as mountains, trees or chimneys, in the application when setting up the geographical view of the solar park. This considers another common factor that could cause inquiries to the service hotline.
With these simple yet effective visual elements, we satisfied both user groups: the investors were informed in a reliable and intuitive way, and the technicians were able to concentrate on their actual tasks and on the main problems of the solar parks. As a result, calls to the service hotline were indeed made much less frequently.
Creating value through empathy and innovation
When addressing the unique challenges faced by global companies, our UX team needs to regularly leverage the power of empathy and innovative thinking. In order to develop intuitive tools, such as the dynamic world map, we take into account the perspectives of various user roles and find a solution to combine them in a value-creating way.
By understanding both investors and technicians, we enabled an efficient and satisfying interaction that reduced unnecessary inquiries and allowed each party to focus on their core responsibilities. This project showcases not just the value of solving obvious problems but also the impact of transformative solutions in unexpected areas. After all, it all began with a casual comment. We’re committed to crafting tools that genuinely enhance user experiences on a global scale, so if you’re facing an issue similar to the one described here, get in touch with our experts today.