Brumaba

Redesigning the tool used by service technicians to fix and maintain operating tables.

Period

Feb 2020 - Jun 2020

About

A German family business that produces operating/treatment tables and chairs since 1980:
https://www.brumaba.de/

Brief

Their service technicians (own staff and contractors) used an old tool and software to setup, test, install, diagnose, fix and maintain the operation tables and chairs that they made and sold.

The technicians handled their jobs very well for a long while, but the servicing tool had persisting and annoying problems:

- Hard to navigate through the interface using a few buttons, a dial and limited screen real estate
- High learning curve
- High cost of producing these servicing tools
- Messy, unintuitive and hardly scalable information architecture
- Lack of online, remote control and therefore logistically expensive and time-consuming
- Limited hardware, unable to support smart and more powerful functionalities, and hard to update old equipment

Left: The skeleton of one of the operating tables in the works. Right top: Table remote control. Right bottom: Servicing tool.

Research

We initiated the process by gathering key insights through discussions with both the client and the development team.

Additionally, we reviewed existing documentation, including user manuals tailored for clients and technicians, to better understand the product and its use cases.

User interviews

Interviewed a few technicians in order to outline and validate the main personas.

Personas

We ended up focusing mainly on 3 types of service technicians.

Competitors

Looked into main local and international competitors on the current market.

Heuristic analysis

Explored and mapped the existing servicing tool.

Workshop

We facilitated and guided a live, two-day workshop with the client and the tech team, in order to align goals and drive the project forward.

Lean canvas

We aligned everyone with the main problems and expectations.

User journey map

Went through the journeys of our identified personas both outside and within the usage of the service tool.

High-level requirements

As an overview, the most important and challenging features included:

- A secure way to authenticate only authorised people

- A way to connect and setup the tables in offline mode, and then sync the settings or updates afterwards

- Rearrange overall navigation depending on goals and procedures (install, test, diagnose, setup, update, fix, maintain)

- Rearrange parameters and simplify editing them

- Recreate the table/chair remote control in the app

Solution

Examples of deliverables from the design process, such as mapping, information architecture & sketching to prototypes and testing.

Concept map and User flows

We mapped and remapped the first proposal on the journeys and user flows.

Users permissions

To simplify work and deliver faster, we decided to prototype only a full-permission flow and mapped out which user is allowed to do what in the app in this table view.

Sketches

Sketches are not very detailed, but very helpful to quickly visualise the user flows before digitising them.

Wireframes prototype

Putting together the first iteration in a wireframe prototype for testing.

Usability testing

Had 5 online usability testing sessions in which we concluded:

- They were happy to see an interface that was much clearer and cleaner.

- It was way easier to use than the previous tool, and although it still needed some learning, the technicians didn't mind it and would expect some sort of training anyway.

- The parameters, although clearer in their rearrangement, and simpler to setup, they didn't find them as easy, as they kept recalling the old arrangement, so we adapted this to be as close as possible to the old one from the tool, but still make more sense and scalable.

- Main navigation was a bit confusing, had to change it so that the main screen would show all the tables and current statuses right away.

Visual design prototype

After going through the conclusions with the client and devs, we adjusted the flows while also applying a more finished look to the UI, the main framework being Google's Material design components, grid and overall rules.

Mobile version

This was discussed in the end, and decided to have a responsive version, in order to have an open opportunity for scalability later on.

Handover

Went over everything with dev team, clarified and adjusted some flows, according to their functional requirements and prepared the stylesheet and assets. We always offer support for a few more months after our part is done.

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Brumaba

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Brief

Research

Workshop

Solution

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