BT Global Services maintains a portfolio of sales tools designed to configure and quote for its many network products. Each tool has been created bespoke for each product, resulting in a long product-to-market cycle time. The use of multiple tools for multiple products meant users had to swivel between different tools. Lack of validation and clear task flow led to increased errors and an inconsistent user experience between different tools led to longer training times. Users found these tools difficult to use and this was cited as one of the main reasons for indirect sales channels abandoning their use.

The task was to design a User Interface that would support the following:
- Creating a product agnostic User Interface driven by the product model.
- Providing users with clear call to action and task flow to create error free quotes.
- A single interface for multiple products and multiple customer sites.
- Reducing training time through improved learnability.
- Increasing revenue by winning indirect sales through an improved user experience.

I began by concentrating on the delivery to support the most complicated part of the journey, notably, the bulk configuration of products across multiple locations. I began by conducting an evaluation of the developed system so far, to gain an understanding of the issues. I then validated these findings with developers and 2 ‘gold users’ (the core user team being located in Hungary).
It became clear that users had not been effectively engaged in the design process to date and so I made this a priority with regular 'show and tells' to demonstrate the prototype as it was developed. I was fortunate enough to be co-located with key developers and so was able to regularly brainstorm with them and demonstrate to them the importance of satisfying the users.
I set and ran a program of remote A/B testing with a number of end users comparing the previous version with the new prototype which resulted in an 80% increase in user satisfaction.
Very much aware that we had been concentrating on one specific part of the journey, I planned future UI deliverables to ensure the entire application was improved. I travelled to Budapest on one occasion to test prototypes scheduled for later releases and took the opportunity whilst there to create personas to share with the development team to increase their understanding of the end user.

Customer Feedback "You have really made a significant difference to rSQE and I know that your contribution has been very welcomed by my guys."
Mark Dunsire BT Head of Next Generation Sales Tools

"Rick is very customer centric and has been a breath of fresh air since joining the project. His first actions where to get under the skin of his customers and fully understand the issues that we were facing. This took the form of face to face workshops held in Adastral where Rick listened to our challenges a quickly got to grips with the issues. At every stage of the development Rick has sort customer feedback and incorporated this into the next iteration. He has also conducted a user survey to again insure he has full customer engagement in his development activities. In short Rick has put the customer at the centre of all he does."
Tony Pateman BT Next Generation Sales Tool

Working through ideas with developers on whiteboars

Documenting one of the user flows for Add Product

Sample of wireframes showing task flow and actionable areas

Detail from wireframe showing annotation for logic within page

Excerpt from a persona for users of sales quoting engine