Customising an Enterprise Application across industries

Case Study

This study focus on the integration of three different enterprise platforms into one product and the creation of a seamless experience for the users of the product. 1) The Enterprise Building Integrator (EBI) platform has been a leader in the BMS space for more than 30 years. 2) The Command and Control Suite (CCS) is built on top of the EBI platform and consist of various map-based offerings depending on the chosen device - Command Wall (85” wall monitor), Command Console (49” gaming monitor), Command Station (2 x 1920x1080) and Station (Surface Pro. and 3) Digital Video Manager (DVM) is Honeywell’s enterprise solution for security (CCTV).

These offerings focus broadly on the following industries -

BMS (Building Management Systems), PSIM (physical security management) and Smart Cities. Within these industries Honeywell target the following verticals -

• Critical Government Infrastructure e.g. Corrections

• Airports

• Healthcare

• Universities

• Data centres

• Leisure and Entertainment

• Smart Precincts 

• Pharmaceuticals etc.

Project duration

Three months

Skills 

• Research and interviews

• Personas, XOs, Task based workflows, Jobs to be done

• Building of demo system / prototype

• Presentation of project to stakeholders and customers

• Project Management

Tools

• Paper prototyping

• Sketch

• Honeywell HMIWeb

• Honeywell Automation Rules

• Honeywell VOConnect

• Honeywell CCS, EBI, DVM

• Adobe Photoshop

• Adobe Premier

• Camtasia

• Jira and Confluence

The challenge

The company wanted to release the EBI R600 upgrade at the yearly Americas HUG (Honeywell Users Group) in 2019. 

The UX-team was tasked with the challenge to 

• give the product a facelift and change current market perception that EBI was an old and redundant BMS platform

• launch Command Console powered by EBI R600 platform as a new player in the PSIM space 

• provide a solution to help on-site project engineers configure the default system per customer requirements

• help sales to sell the product more efficiently

• Integrate all three platforms (EBI, CCS and DVM) seamlessly into the Command Console offering with a unified modern interface

Honeywell has been in the building enterprise space for decades and the biggest challenge for a relatively new UX team was the assumption from stakeholders that they knew everything about their verticals and that we did not have to talk to customers.

Our Approach

The team had 3 months in which to deliver 5 fully functional demos for HUG. 

It consisted of 4 designers, myself as team lead and 3 graduate designers. I planned our time into - 

• research (4 weeks), 

• technical training and hardware setup (2 weeks),

• building the demo scenarios (4 weeks), and 

• user testing and feedback (1 week)

• improvements and changes (1 week)

• Incorporating our different demos into one HUG showcase system (1 week)

The business selected the verticals they wanted us to focus on at HUG; Airports, Universities, Data Centres, Healthcare and Smart Cities.

Stage 1: Research

The team started our research by looking into existing competitor products; we looked at the feedback of project teams on lack of compliance when tendering for projects; the usability testing results of the past 6 months and the backlog to identify gaps in the current product. We also reviewed current tender documents (where available) and the Australian standards for Incident Management.

The next stage was arranging contextual inquiries and interviews. The biggest obstacle was finding actual users of the system that could give us insight into real pain points and needs. Most users were based in Europe and the US and we had to conduct these sessions remotely. We talked with internal stakeholders and subject matter experts within the different verticals. We spoke to site technicians working on customer systems and the engineers that customise the software per project, based on customer requirements. We managed to visit a prominent Sydney airport, Melbourne hospital, Sydney based data centres and correctional facilities to get an understanding of how the system differ across different industries.

In tandem with the research activities I had to work with the engineering team to obtain funding, source, setup and configure a hardware system independent of production that could be used to configure the product to our new use cases.

Stage 2: Defining the problem.

We started our ideation process with infinity diagramming, identifying themes around operator workflows. We used empathy mapping to get an understanding of the mindset of operators in a control room dealing with different activities requiring very different workflows e.g. Security Operators want situational awareness of a site, respond to a major incident while still attending to daily tasks such as opening doors.

We created experience outcomes (XOs) for every vertical to ensure we target the correct scenarios. (view gallery below)

Operator tasks were identified, graphics were designed to suit the selected workflows (see below). We chose to design paper prototypes over building wireframes to 1) speed up the process 2) design of the UI was limited to what the system would allow. We asked project engineers to give us feedback using these paper prototypes flushing out the whole operator experience e.g. interaction with management, customers, staff, contractors, first responders etc.

Recommendations

• visibility of the alarm list at all times

• change navigation to a central pane vs in-line navigations on system graphics

• colour coded alarm banner across the UI to ensure an operator did not miss a critical incident

• dedicated pane for common / every day tasks

• change the default Console screen setup from 42” to 49” screens to suit an operator in a control room that needed direct line of sight to a video wall. 

• certain workflows were more suitable to a tablet or phone e.g. nursing station in a healthcare facility

• certain environments were more suitable to a single HD screen setup e.g. Building Management scenarios

• dedicated window to bring up the operators own default CCTV setups

• dedicated window for rotating content

Stage 3: Building the demo scenarios on a live system 

Once hardware were ready and software installed we could start configuring the system based on our paper wireframes. It was a steep learning curve for all involved. Designers struggled working with old and very technical software. We used a Honeywell product to generate html/CCS to simulate a new modern interface on top of three different platforms.

Additional tasks were to design ‘system displays’ associated with workflow steps, configure the EBI back-end and DVM security footage. We needed specific CCTV footage to support our incident workflows. Stock video were generic and not suitable. We had to shoot 16 clips across hospital and airports e.g. irate customer, active shooter, stolen baby etc. 

I worked closely with the visual designer, we had three days to shoot all our clips. I prepared a schedule, canvassed volunteers, found costumes, props and locations within a limited budget. Then we had to edit and convert the clips, insert  the clips into the DVM platform, link the DVM footage to the CCS platform and incorporated it into our workflows.

Stage 4: User testing and feedback, improvements and changes and incorporating our different demos into one HUG showcase system

Throughout the process we were constantly validating design decisions with stakeholders, engineers and customers to ensure that we did not have problems at the end of the project. This ensured that there were minor changes to the demos when we came to the official usability testing in week 11. Demos were incorporated into the HUG Showcase System and shipped to the US on 1 May 2019 as planned. 

Post delivery date we were tasked to shoot additional training video showcasing each vertical to ensure sales staff could sell it confidently at HUG. We also had to shoot video on the new functionality brought into the EBI R600 platform by CCS and DVM and how to configure the systems to create a seamless user experience.

Highlight

The team was awarded a Honeywell Gold Bravo award from the Americas HUG coordinator Harold Matherne.

The verticals were showcased again at HUG Asia-Pacific in August 2019 and the customer response were overwhelming. For the Asia-Pacific market we had to add a third vertical; Corrections. 

As a direct result of the work done on the corrections vertical the healthcare vertical became newly competitive in a billion dollar market.

Next Steps

The demos we designed are being productised by Honeywell Building Solutions as Command Console powered by EBI R600. 

It gives a security operator instant situational awareness across his/her facility with a simplified navigation system. It enables the operator to respond faster to alarms and incidents using a single click to call-up specific content, manage an incident such as a fire alarm and evacuation while dealing with every day tasks such as remotely opening and closing a door for another guard in the facility. The incident workflow provide guided response and the ability to create reports for forensic analysis. It provide a preconfigured product out-of-the-box which required only minor configuration from on-site project engineers. 

Our solution once implemented will save the business money in engineering fees and enable sales to sell the product more efficiently.

Visit the Honeywell Virtual Technology Week and keep and eye out for Critical Government infrastructure, Healthcare, Airports and Data Centres.