UIS (Upfitter Integration System)
Post Sales Support
March 2023 - December 2023
ROLE
UX & UI
TEAM
D-Ford
TOOLS
Figma, Miro
Admittedly, the Upfitter Integration System (UIS) may not have the most captivating name or appealing acronym. However, it represents a groundbreaking innovation developed by Ford to streamline and standardize the process of upfitting and converting their vehicles. In the past, upfitters and converters were burdened with outdated and complex third-party software to program various features like lights, sirens, ploughs, or cranes on Super Duty trucks or Transit vehicles. With the introduction of the new 2023 Super Duty in the United States, UIS aims to revolutionise this process, making it simpler and more efficient by providing a drag-and-drop web-interface for upfitters to upfit their vehicles.
In March 2023, I joined this project with D-Ford as a product designer tasked with designing components, concepts, and workflows for post-sales support. Unlike my previous projects, this endeavour primarily focuses on service design. This entails meticulously planning and coordinating the people, infrastructure, communication, and material aspects of the service to enhance its quality and optimise the interaction between UIS and its users (namely upfitters and converters).
The Problem
The highly anticipated release of the 2023 Ford Super Duty, one of the top-selling vehicles in the United States, was just around the corner - set to release in June 2023. However, there was a significant hurdle to overcome: the UIS software, essential for the vehicle's functionality, was plagued with notable flaws. Frequent crashes, sluggish responsiveness, and potential risks to the success of the new vehicle were some of the pressing issues. To make matters worse, there was a lack of an adequate support system in place. Users faced uncertainty about who to contact for assistance, and Ford was understandably concerned that this unpreparedness would lead to user frustration.
Compounding the challenges was the uncertainty surrounding the best approach for providing support to users. Previous attempts had involved experimenting with innovative and futuristic solutions, such as equipping upfitters with Google Glasses to facilitate real-time demonstrations of faults and issues using virtual and augmented reality. In a recent trial of the UIS software, software engineers from the United States had to travel to South Africa to provide on-site support for malfunctioning upfitted vehicles. Clearly, a more effective and efficient solution was desperately needed.
The Barriers
Our team consisted of three members: myself specializing in UI & UX design, Stef focusing on interaction design, and Ana leading the research efforts. With a mere six-week timeframe until the initial distribution of the Super Duty vehicles to the upfitters, time was undoubtedly our greatest challenge. Furthermore, the release of the Super Duty in the United States marked the onset of a tight schedule, as the launch of the new e-Transit in Europe loomed just a few months away, bringing with it potentially distinct support requirements and expectations.
The Process
A significant portion of our project was dedicated to critical tasks such as competitor research, user research, rapid prototyping, and mapping user flows. These activities were crucial in illustrating the urgent situation we were facing and effectively communicating the necessary steps to senior managers.
At the outset, my primary objectives was to map out the existing support websites. However, we encountered a challenge as there were multiple platforms available, none of which possessed the necessary technical depth to adequately support upfitters.
Competitor Research
With a sense of urgency, I promptly shifted my focus to researching the most effective support methods available. This encompassed a wide range of options, from basic yet reliable resources like forums and self-help sites, to more innovative solutions such as cutting-edge apps capable of reading fault codes through NFC or utilizing smartphone cameras to identify hardware issues.
Ideation
Following that, I took the lead in facilitating How Might We (HMW) ideation sessions utilizing the popular Crazy 8's technique, a fundamental method in the Design Sprint process. Crazy 8's involves a rapid sketching exercise where participants are encouraged to generate eight unique ideas within a strict time limit of eight minutes. This dynamic activity fostered creativity and encouraged diverse perspectives among the team members.
To prioritise and refine our ideas further, we employed dot-voting as a collaborative technique. Each team member had the opportunity to allocate their votes to their favourite ideas, helping us identify the most promising concepts. Building on this, we utilised a feasibility matrix to assess the viability of implementing these ideas within our time constraints. This matrix allowed us to evaluate which solutions had the potential to address user pain points effectively and could be implemented quickly. By combining these techniques, we ensured a data-driven approach to selecting the most impactful ideas for immediate implementation.
Storyboarding
With a selection of promising ideas identified, I tapped into a skill that I had honed during my previous experience in the rapid digital prototyping team: storyboarding. Recognising the power of storytelling to foster empathy and gain a deeper understanding of user perspectives, I embarked on creating compelling narratives. These stories allowed me to walk senior managers through the user journey, effectively conveying the challenges at hand and illustrating the need for immediate action. Additionally, the storyboarding exercise enabled me to highlight specific "quick-wins" that could be swiftly implemented to enhance user support.
User Research
Recognising the importance of user-centric design, we actively pursued both remote and in-person user interviews to gain deeper insights into the needs and preferences of our target users. During these interviews, we diligently took notes using the collaborative platform Miro. This allowed us to capture valuable information and observations from the user interviews.
I also developed user sorting cards to further enhance our understanding of key preferences. These cards allowed users to sort and prioritise different features, functionalities, or solutions based on their preferences and needs. By providing users with the opportunity to directly engage with the sorting process, we gained valuable insights into their preferences and priorities. This activity not only helped us uncover user preferences but also provided a tangible representation of their decision-making process. The sorting cards served as a valuable tool for validating and refining our ideas, ensuring that our final solutions were tailored to meet the specific needs and preferences of our users.
Following the interviews, we conducted thorough data analysis, carefully examining the notes and organising them into meaningful trends and insights. This analysis provided us with a clearer understanding of user pain points and helped us identify which concepts truly addressed those challenges. Consequently, we were able to refine our ideas further, discarding ones that did not effectively solve the identified pain points, and highlighting those concepts that exhibited a strong potential for success. This data-driven approach ensured that our solutions were aligned with the actual needs of our users.
User Flow / Vision Journey Map
Building upon the insights gained from the customer research, I embarked on creating a comprehensive and accurate user flow. This user flow effectively illustrated the significant flaws present in the current process while also presenting proposed solutions for both short-term and long-term improvements.
In addition to identifying the problems, I meticulously outlined the estimated costs and requirements associated with each solution. This thorough evaluation enabled me to provide management with a clear understanding of the potential investments required for implementing the proposed changes.
By combining this user flow with my storytelling techniques, I was able to create a compelling narrative that effectively conveyed the challenges faced by users and the transformative impact that the suggested solutions could have. This visual aid proved instrumental in generating support and buy-in from management, propelling the project forward with a clear direction and actionable steps.
Concepts & Prototyping
Taking into account the valuable feedback received from senior management and our customers, I initiated the process of visually conceptualising our ideas. These concepts encompassed various improvements, such as enhancing the current platforms to facilitate efficient feedback submission, particularly focusing on software-related feedback rather than hardware. We also explored the idea of implementing quick start guides and "quick wins," such as printable QR-labels that users could affix to the UIS hardware to direct them to the appropriate points of support.
For longer-term solutions, we undertook the task of creating a high-fidelity prototype of a new UIS website that catered specifically to the technical requirements of upfitters. Furthermore, I developed mock-ups of a comprehensive 'help' section integrated within the tool itself. This envisioned 'help' section included user-centric features such as onboarding tutorials, YouTube video tutorials, live chat support, a community forum for user interaction and queries, and webinars to further assist users.
These visual representations and prototypes allowed us to bring our ideas to life and provided tangible examples of how the proposed solutions would address user needs and pain points. This enabled us to gather further feedback and validation from stakeholders and ensured that the resulting designs and features were well-aligned with the requirements of both the users and the business.
Handover
After showcasing our ideas, senior management played a pivotal role in selecting the most promising solutions for implementation, categorizing them as near-term and long-term strategies. Following this decision, we organized our work into SharePoint, creating a comprehensive repository that documented specific user pain points, the rationale behind the design choices, and the progress made on both completed and ongoing solutions.
The responsibility for executing the selected ideas was then handed over to the product software engineering team. They took charge of implementing the necessary updates over-the-air to the UIS software, ensuring that the proposed enhancements and features were seamlessly integrated.
Concurrently, a dedicated team was assigned the task of homogenizing the Ford Pro websites, streamlining the user experience and incorporating a dedicated section for UIS upfitters. This dedicated UIS area would cater specifically to the needs of upfitters, providing them with the necessary support and resources.
By establishing clear channels of communication, utilizing SharePoint to track progress, and assigning specialized teams to specific tasks, we fostered a collaborative environment and ensured efficient execution of the selected solutions. This comprehensive approach aimed to address user pain points and enhance the overall user experience within the UIS ecosystem.
“The new Ford Pro Upfit Integration System* (UIS) is a game changer for anyone installing or operating upfits. This hardware/software solution allows upfitters to seamlessly integrate equipment on the truck. Ultimately, UIS will unleash capabilities many may not have known existed and open up a new world of possibilities.”
— FORD PRO, GLOBAL