Vodafone IoT Partner Portal Journey Map
UX Case Study
Overview
As part of the Vodafone Business Strategy, one of their main pillars was to become a leading provider of IoT end-to-end solutions. Their strategy was to eventually diversify into a large portfolio of ‘plug-and-play’ IoT E2E Solutions with the aim to drive customer adoption and overcome the current slow, manual approach to launching solutions. In order to ensure a seamless integration and a best-in-class customer experience, Vodafone required a detailed User Journey map to be developed to visualise and demonstrate the process of bringing an IoT product to market.
Design Process
Discover
Ideate
Design
Test
Deliver
Stakeholder Interviews
In order to gain an understanding of what the final journey should look like, numerous interviews were conducted with Vodafone internal product managers, line of business team members, and technical teams. A detailed list of requirements were drawn up and in-depth discussions were had over the most efficient process to onboard a potential IoT Partner. It was an essential deliverable for Vodafone to be able to provide a seamless and effortless onboarding process for their customers, so customer experience was a top priority.
Further interviews were held to discuss the features an IoT Partner would require in order to effectively manage their IoT solution. The Vodafone technical team provided insight into how proposed features would integrate into existing platforms and how best to proceed. Team members from the line of business outlined the current process and ideas regarding how it could be more digitized.
Current and perspective customers were also interviewed in order to gain an insight into how they would imagine the onboarding process to look like, and what features they felt would be necessary to effectively manage their IoT products. Current processes were considered and pain points were noted, with effective solutions being another priority.
Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis was an essential key to understanding what a best-in-class platform might look like. Leaders of the IoT management field were assessed based on the services they provided and the level of satisfaction their customers experienced. Onboarding journeys were also assessed and compared for efficiencies - or lack of.
Ideation Workshop
To further to our research, we asked stakeholders, product managers and perspective customers to take part in an ideation workshop. Participants were asked visualise what the user journey might look like and what features they could benefit from. The purpose of this exercise was to gain a true insight into the expectations of stakeholders and customers. Instructions were purposely kept to a minimum to avoid any bias or limitations on creativity or idea generation.
Each participant was asked to explain the rationale behind their illustrations, followed by a voting session during which, participants were asked to vote for the features they liked the most. Notes were made based on reactions and feedback before the session ended and participants were allowed to further discuss which features they would like to be most prominent.
Prioritization Map
Following an in-depth workshop analysis, key features were condensed and then prioritized based on their importance and feasability. Features that recieved high votes were automatically assigned with a high importance, while further interviews with the technical team provided insight on their feasability.
Affinity Mapping
In order to begin to visualise what the user journey could possibly look like, we began categorising features based on where in the journey they would live. From extensive analysing of workshop feedback and competitor research, we were able to develop key stages of the user journey and began assigning features and functionality accordingly.
Defining the User Journey
Between further workshops with LOB and our previous research, we were able to begin outlining what the initial user journey for the onboarding stage might look like. Despite the complexity of what is required from potential solution partners, it was imperative that the journey was as seamless and straightforward as possible. For this reason, the journey had to be reconsidered numerous times in order to achieve an efficient user flow.
After confirming through workshop feedback, we established the starting point of the journey would be on a splash page where users could learn about the benefits of the partner portal. Users from here would be able to register their interest and effectively begin their onboarding journey.
After numerous meetings with the product management team we were also able to determine where the Ariba stage would best fit in the process and how product managers would interact with this.
We continued to work closely with members of the product management team in order to define the evaluation stage as well as how the industrialisation and localisation stage would be approached from both a user and product manager perspective.
An outline of the in-life management was also created in order to provide an insight into some of the features that would be available to assist in the management of IoT products. Users would reach the dashboard following successful completion of the onboarding phase. From here they would be able to view a breakdown of various performance metrics as well as access a number of features to help manage operations.
Wireframes
Once the basic user flow had been outlined, we then produced lo-fidelity wireframes in order to visualise the proposed journey. Wireframe designs illustrated how users would navigate through the onboarding process and upload information relevant to their application. The designs also illustrated some of the potential in-life features and how they could be interacted with.
User Journey Map
The final deliverable was a full scale journey map illustrating in detail the seamless path from onboarding and approving an IoT to global distribution and an in-depth in life management system fit for purpose. Stakeholders were given a comprehensive breakdown at each stage in the journey of how users would interact with the system and the user centric experience it would provide. Key insights from user interviews and ideation workshops were also provided to support decision making and enhance the user experience. Where relevant, wireframes were also mocked up in order to assist in the visualisation process and illustrate the proposed experience.
