Admicom

Design Sprint kickstarted a user-oriented product and new ways of working

Fasilitoija ja kehittäjät työskentelemässä pöydän ääressä. Fasilitoija ja kehittäjät työskentelemässä pöydän ääressä.

Industry

Software development
Construction

Services

Design Sprint
Facilitation
Prototypes

The value of design thinking 

Design Sprint gave software company Admicom an efficient start to developing a new dashboard. Admicom has continued developing its product after the Sprint and continues to apply lessons learned from the Design into their everyday work. 

Admicom wanted to develop a new dashboard for their entire group of products. One of their goals was to enable each user to customise the control panel according to their needs. We organised and facilitated a Design Sprint, that focused on Admicom's goals and customer experiences.

As a result of the sprint, Admicom received an efficient kickstart for the project. The objective is to provide customers with a completely new, cutting-edge user experience across all of the group's products.

Tocoman-Design-Sprint

The Client

Admicom is a rapidly growing software company. Its software family consists of various solutions for the construction, building engineering and manufacturing fields, such as the ERP system Adminet and the construction software solutions of Tocoman

Adminet is an ERP that covers all the software needs of small and medium-sized businesses in the construction, building engineering and manufacturing fields, from offer calculations to accounting. The Tocoman solutions give a comprehensive and illustrative overall picture of a construction project, which helps in the practical day-to-day work. 

The Challenge

The control panels for different services were separated, requiring multiple actions to navigate between them, which resulted in a time-consuming and ineffective user experience. The same user may have different roles, for example, as a budget manager, as an overseer, or in the construction site documentation. The control panel had a different user interface for each role, which led to users having to jump from one view to another in a confusing way. 

Admicom wanted a centralised dashboard where it would be easy to navigate between the different services and functions. The user interface should be clear and show the most important information at a glance. They also wanted to be able to add user-specific customization to the different views at a later stage.

We chose Fraktio because they had a comprehensive experience of the process and an empathetic approach starting from the first conversations. We hit it off from the start.

Samuli Rantanen
Samuli Rantanen Product Designer, Tocoman/Admicom
Facilitator Lauri
During the Design Sprint Admicom's multidisciplinary team participated in workshops.
Admicom's teams chatting in workshop.
Whit the help of Design Sprint Admicom got a great boost for their development project.

The user is at the center of everything

Before organising the Design Sprint, we interviewed the users of Admicom software. We asked them what takes the most time when using the software, what causes them trouble and what would improve the user experience. We reviewed what themes were prevalent and voted the most important ones out of them. This way, we quickly got a genuinely user-oriented starting point.

The Sprint was facilitated by Fraktio’s Design Lead Vitali Gusatinsky and UX Engineer Lauri Lännenmäki. It gathered a working group from multiple company sectors, such as marketing, product management, and customer service. According to our own agile Design Sprint model, they participated in the work for only three mornings, after which our team continued working. Therefore, the client benefited significantly without having to spend too much of their employees’ time.

Our expectations were high and they were met – the Design Sprint went really well.

We have gotten internal feedback about how well it was facilitated. Lauri and Vitali are professional and empathetic. Their knowledge was in a key role.

Brainstorming and workshopping together at the same table was a very efficient way to work, as matters could be approached from many different angles at the same time. Plenty of ideas are generated by brainstorming together. It pays off: even though all ideas aren’t necessarily relevant, the best ones are among them.

Samuli Rantanen
Samuli Rantanen Product Designer, Tocoman/Admicom
Admicom's expert drawing prototypes
The issues that surfaced during user interviews were considered during the design phase of the process.
UI designs on paper.

Testing the prototype saves time and resources

Our team continued the Design Sprint by creating a prototype of a dashboard. It was tested with a variety of user groups who currently use Admicom services, from whom we got feedback. This is where the genius of Design Sprint comes to play. Every company tests their products, but too many do testing only when they release their services to the public. Instead, by testing the prototype, we get real user feedback in a short amount of time. The risk is low, and the process continuously gives new information. If something doesn’t work, we can pivot before too much time and resources have been wasted. 

We figured out through testing that, for example, the most challenging part of using the control panel is changing from one view to another and that it needs to be made clearer.  Things that our team thought were clear weren’t necessarily that for others. This is why testing is so important!

Had we started to execute this some other way, we’d have gotten to the validation stage of the idea months later. Now, we immediately noticed what works and didn’t start to develop the wrong kind of product. We saved plenty of time, money, and resources.

Samuli Rantanen
Samuli Rantanen Product Designer, Tocoman/Admicom
Prototypes Prototypes
Screenshots of the prototypes

The lessons learned from the Design Sprint are used in the whole organisation

At Fraktio, we adopt a coaching mentality in Design Sprints. This means that we don't just code and facilitate for the client, but also provide them with a method for learning and continuing further development. In collaboration with Admicom, we reviewed the observations that emerged during user testing, as well as our recommendations for further development at the end of the sprint. We then provided them with the tested prototype assets, final report and a plan for implementation.

After the Sprint, Admicom has progressed rapidly in the execution of their dashboard. They have also started other projects in which they use Design Sprint as an internal tool. 

The value and benefit generated by Design Sprint can still be seen in the way we work.

We often use what we learned during the sprint as a guideline in our operations. We’ve taken Design Sprint into internal use and utilize the things we learned from Fraktio throughout the company. The sprint also strengthened our interest in design-based thinking. The client experience is at the center of our strategy, and the processes of design-based thinking take us closer to this goal. We are on our way to the next step in design maturity. For that, we can thank Fraktio. 

Samuli Rantanen
Samuli Rantanen Product Designer, Tocoman/Admicom
Discussing in the workshop.
Admicom's experts got some handy tools for their development work and design thinking has really taken off within the group since that Sprint.
Prototypes
Fraktio-Palvelut-design-sprint

Is Design Sprint the right choice for you?

Whether you have a problem to solve or are starting a new development project, Design Sprint can be a suitable approach. Get in touch with us and learn how this process can deliver value for you.

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