Project

HP's new managed service to simplify & automate device management for SMBs.

Outcomes



I designed 4 different clickable prototypes for testing



We decided on 2 of the designs, one MVP and the other would become a "NorthStar" longer-term vision



Thanks to our research, both product and sales were more aligned on how to sell and market the offering



Development is now in progress for our MVP

Year & Product Type

2023, B2B Managed Service

My Role & Contributions

Senior Product Designer: Strategy, User Research & Testing, Prototyping, Visual Design

Stakeholders

Product Owners, Senior VP

Problem & Solution Discovery

When I was brought on as a contractor, HP had already spent a year exploring their offer to SMBs. I came in to help them stress-test their offer, do more research, and to build out prototypes for testing.

A lot of assumptions had already been made about the problem, market, and proposed solution. Very little had been validated. As we found out later, some of the assumptions proved to be misguided.

I was able to bring a lean startup mindset to a giant company like HP and help them with user research and rapid prototyping.

HP's opportunity: simplify & automate device management.

SMB IT Decision Makers are burdened with device management. HP and it's partners are uniquely qualified and positioned to take that burden off their shoulders.

By switching from a transactional device sales model to a relationship-based model, it would greatly increase retention for both HP and HP's partners and free up resources for the SMBs.

Besides the ongoing time expense of device management for SMBs, there's a huge initial capital expenditure when purchasing equipment for their offices and employees.

Lastly, existing device management solutions were still very cumbersome and not very automated. There's wasn't much middle ground between customization and efficiency.

The proposed high-level solution was meant to tackle the complex orchestration between HP, HP's partners, the SMB IT team, and the SMB employees.

I designed a series of user interfaces that could handle these different personas while requiring minimal development resources for MVP.

User Research

We conducted 24 interviews with individuals and teams at HP's partners, SMBs, and with employees. We wanted to understand all the pain points at each level to help us get to a better solution quicker.

I interviewed the employees and some of the SMBs. I then aggregated my findings into succinct documents and spreadsheets so the rest of the team could digest it easier.

🔎

Key Findings

Employee onboarding is one of the biggest pain points for both SMBs and employees.
Employees tech preferences and needs are unpredictable and varied. Generalized personas aren't enough to automate prescription of full tech bundles. Some input from the employee is useful. This would impact the systems and interface we built for employees and SMBs.
Support, proactive device refresh and employee offboarding were other areas we could help with. I needed to design a separate flow for each.
Customers needed to hear that the managed service includes more than just the physical devices.
The ROI and savings need to be displayed within the user interface.
The CapEx savings for SMBs were a major selling point.
We decided to incorporate AI concepts into my designs. AI was something almost everyone expected and was interested in.
Employee productivity is prioritized over happiness, although there is strong correlation between the two. This made some design ideas obsolete while offering new avenues for interaction with the employees. It also changed our value proposition with the SMBs and led to increased interest.
There's a delicate balance between employee preferences and business allowances when it comes to device assignment.

Exploration & Planning

Now that we had some research to reference, we started exploring the directions we could head in.

This phase consisted of collaborative sketching, white-boarding, concept graphics and more. We also started involving other technical teams to see which strategies and solutions were feasible and realistic.

Mapping the User Journey & Service Delivery

We then needed to get a deeper understanding of our user's perspective, and chart out how we would deliver the service.

I suggested we use the journey mapping software "TheyDo" and mapped out the user journey for the SMBs and employees. Our team ended up adopting it and it accelerated our understanding of our various user types.

Usually user journeys are created in Figma, Miro, or another tool that doesn't allow for easy editing. They often get monopolized by the designer or product lead.

Different members of our team had their own knowledge and wisdom to add to our collective bucket of insights. Our switch to TheyDo's platform meant anybody on the team could easily contribute to the map, allowing for more collaboration and increased productivity.

Prototyping

Instead of presenting a few options and attempting to validate our assumptions, we created prototypes to learn and explore the problem/solution space more.

Testing a wide range of options would help us decide on a high level which direction to head in. HP already had various existing solutions that we could modify for our purposes to build an MVP.

With so many unknowns, we decided to focus on divergent thinking and solutions before converging and iterating on a single solution.

The Widget Prototype Favorite

The first prototype was inspired by other apps I've used, such as Loom. I love that Loom is ready and waiting for you in the task bar when you need it. When you don't, it's out of sight and out of mind.

Although our service is exponentially more complicated than an app like Loom, I was keen on adopting the narrowed focus that a widget format brings. Our customers could then see the value HP was bringing to them, while measuring the metrics that matter and completing urgent tasks.

HP's service was hired to lessen the hassle of device management. Our customer shouldn't have a giant dashboard to manage, overwhelmed by a sea of metrics and statuses. The widget was the perfect lightweight delivery mechanism.

Zeroing in on MVP (& Beyond)

After more user testing and discussion between our internal teams, we decided that the simple prototype would be the best fit for MVP.

The widget option, which was a crowd-pleaser with our users, could be explored later as an add-on to simplify touch points, tasks and notifications.

The simple prototype wouldn't inherit any restrictions from other platforms. We could build quickly without affecting other systems and draining resources from other teams. It was "mid-fi" enough to make room for quick changes and improvements.

Users enjoyed the simplicity and focus of the simple UI. The tasks and jobs of their core business are complicated enough. The last thing they needed was a bloated tool for a service that's supposed to make their lives easier.

We could run with the simple option now and let the product grow organically over time as opportunities were spotted and feature requests were made from the different user types.

Alex DiVecchio

Florida, USA