The Company
Sowingo is an all-in-one Dental Inventory Management solution. I was given the task of redesigning the web-based application, and it was also essential that it be responsive across mobile, tablet, and desktop platforms.
It is the number one inventory management system and marketplace in North America and has clients across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. It allows practices to easily track supply levels, product locations, expiring products, and expenses and reorder supplies as needed in a simple cloud-based solution.
Think Amazon merged with inventory management solutions, allowing the medical community to choose to purchase products from a wide range of suppliers. The inventory was categorised on a digital platform, significantly reducing human error and product and money wastage.
My Role: Product Designer (UX/UI)
Tools & Methods: Hand Sketching | MockFlow | Sketch | Adobe Creative Suite | InVision | Project Management Tools; Jira and Trello | User Research/Interviews/Personas/Testing: Surveys, Card Sorting, A\B, | Wireframes | User Journeys | Low/Mid/High Fidelity Mockups
The Task: Website Redesign + App Update
The website needed a complete design overhaul and significant improvements for the user experience. We were disappearing into the background with our competitors and from a clients perspective (through user research), there was no difference between us and the competition, only who could give the best price. The Sowingo software is so sophisticated and developed, that although all the intricacies and functionality cannot be presented on the homepage, it is essential we offered enough information to intrigue potential clients to take a further look, to enquire and to then discover all that the software could do for them and their practice.
Sowingo Web + App | Competitor Analysis + User Research:
As this was a redesign, it only made sense to go back to the beginning of the design process, do some competitor analysis, conduct user research, and begin to create our user personas. All this had been overlooked in the previous website design; being a small start-up at the time, the designer jumped right in and was on an extremely short timeline.
I analysed the 2 other major competitors in the industry (there are not too many as it is somewhat a niche market). This gave me a better understanding of the market, and I was able to discern their strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, it allowed me to develop and put forward plans for the redesign that would make a real impact.
User research is the most important aspect and process of a UX designer, if you don’t have your user correctly identified, understanding your products ability, function and purpose, you are setting your product up for failure. After conducting the user interviews and surveys, I discovered users greatly emphasized alerts and notifications. This was a huge game changer for our product's direction. In a medical facility of any kind, many things require alerts: expiring medications, low-level inventory, return dates of medications, and expiring certifications.
Although we had it in our design specs that alerts would be a part of the product, we didn’t comprehend the complexity and importance of this to the medical community, and only through user research did we discover this. The various alerts needed to have very different statuses of priority, for example a low level inventory item is important but not life changing, a medical certificate expiring could lose a doctor his licence to practice.
Sowingo Web + App | Customer Journey Map
Sowingo Web | Information Architecture:
“Allow the information to tell you how it wants to be displayed. As architecture is ‘frozen music’, information architecture is ‘frozen conversation’. Any good conversation is based on understanding.”
— Richard Saul Wurman
Similar to the previous phases of product development, Information Architecture was never created for the Sowingo web application, so as you can imagine, it was like a crazy animal with various nodes flying everywhere but going nowhere. Users were confused by the information hierarchy, and it wasn’t clear to them when we did some basic user testing with some simple tasks.
Another issue here was the company hadn’t laid out the full scope of the ‘dream’ product they wanted to offer. Creating a product layout with every possible functionality, then working back to create the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to release. Therefore, as the product grows, you have a plan and don’t risk alienating customers with huge changes as you have to redesign and rebrand. Please click on the image below to bring you to an external link to view a detailed view of the web IA.
Please click to view Sitemap and early IA development
Please click on the image above to take you a detailed view of the complex web IA
Sowingo Web | Current Landing Page + Initial Wireframe
Sowingo Web | Proposed Design and High Fidelity Prototype
Sowingo App | Task Flows:
The app's low —and mid-fidelity task flows take the user from sign-in to the General Inventory screen. The higher-fidelity version uses wireframes to begin showing the rough layout of screens and the number of screens required for various tasks. We can begin to get a full picture of what the user has to go through to complete certain stages, whether we can omit screens or need to add more complexity.
Sowingo Web + App | Style Guide
Please click to see full style guide sheet
Sowingo App | Early Prototype:
This prototype was created using Sketch and Invision and has the screens for adding a new product to the inventory from the General Inventory List View right through to the product added success state.
Sowingo App | Final Product:
Screen recording of the final product, created using Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, and Invision. The app is available for download on the App Store, and this run-through shows a brief snapshot of the various features, such as viewing your dashboard, with all your information accessible at the click or swipe, viewing your certificates and shopping list, and finally scanning a product.
Sowingo Product Design | Results:
Since the launch, the mobile app has seen a 180% increase in time spent utilizing the scanner function, a 292% increase in using the mobile app and web app alongside each other, a 43% reduction in bounce rate from the updated landing page, and a 70% increase in sign-ups for trials from new customers in the first month alone.