My Role
I was the lead designer and front-end developer on this project. I worked closely with a backend developer to create API endpoints that would show data on the frontend. We met bi-weekly with an Agile Project manager and internal stakeholders that included the Software Development Manager and the Software Support Manager.
Description
This was my second project for this company where I was helping them go from an old technology to a new technology. The old technology was a USB dongle, a piece of hardware that activated software for 911 dispatching agencies. The project was to allow agencies to access security keys through an online portal instead of mailing out dongles. The front-end for this part of the project was simple, the other part of the project was allow software support and other authorized users to login and manage the keys. This project was similar to creating a CMS but for a highly important task and not just a blog on gardening.
Software & Technical Tools
Outcomes/Lessons Learned
The biggest part of the design solution was using a open-source design system called Material Design for the front-end. I actually used Angular Material, which uses Material Design but makes it work seamlessly with Angular code. With Material Design, I could use common design patterns like tables and buttons and not have to design from scratch. The design solutions for this project had more to do with understanding user experience and less to do about visual design. Answering questions like do we list server types and display agencies or do we list agencies and display the servers each agency has a license for. How should the search field work? Should we add options to search by agency ID? What should be the default search query? Software support staff were usually given an agency name and then asked questions about servers and so listing agencies first was the best starting point and search by name was made the default option.