Case Study - Lendis OS
Lendis OS - Enabling people to work from anywhere
1. Project overview
Since 2018, Lendis has been revolutionizing the way companies organize their workspaces by providing furniture and equipment to more than 1000 companies, such as Zalando, About You, Dr. Smile, and others.
I was responsible for discovering and designing a solution at Lendis that would enhance our customers' ability to provide their employees with an exceptional onboarding experience. Simultaneously, my aim was to alleviate the burdens of manual work on HR and IT departments while also driving increased profitability for our company.
2. The problem
Onboarding remote employees can be challenging due to the extensive logistics involved, particularly the time constraints faced by HR, managers, and IT departments. Additionally, there are frequent delays in delivering equipment to employees, resulting in incorrect items being received.
This situation can turn the onboarding process into a nightmarish experience for everyone involved, making it especially difficult for individuals starting a new remote job.
3.The Challenges
We encountered several challenges while developing the current solution:
1. Time constraint: We had to design and develop a minimum viable product (MVP) within a tight timeframe of three months to gain a competitive advantage in the market.
2. Urgency for exceptional experience: It was crucial to create the best possible onboarding experience for new remote employees within a short period.
3. Loss of Head of UX: Unfortunately, we faced the setback of losing our Head of UX at the beginning of the project, leaving us without guidance in that crucial role.
4. The Strategy
Following the departure of the Head of UX, the project was lacking a clear strategy and roadmap. Taking the initiative, I stepped up to lead the UX team and collaborated with the Head of Product to establish the UX strategy and design plan.
Our UX team consisted of 2 Product Designers, 1 UX Researcher, and 1 UX Writer. While the product roadmap provided by the Head of Product did not include specific UX efforts, we created a separate UX Roadmap that outlined all the necessary activities to deliver the designs. Eventually, we merged this roadmap with the overall Product Roadmap to ensure alignment.
To expedite our design process and development while maintaining high quality, we made the following decisions:
Run a Design Sprint to identify the right problem to solve and the possible solution.
Adopting an existing Figma Design Library to kickstart our Design System.
Utilizing an existing Front End Library to facilitate the development process.
Conducting research two sprints ahead and performing usability testing in parallel to ensure rapid progress.
These decisions allowed us to accelerate our time to market while ensuring the excellence of our designs.
5. User Research
After conducting extensive user research with our existing customers using interviews, we identified the pain points they were having as HR managers, Managers, and IT departments.
Pain Points:
Manual work for HR to assign Equipment for new employees
Wasting too much time on onboarding
Lack of transparency on what the employee has at home
Employees not receiving their equipment on time
We (UXR and I) had prepared our script for the online interviews, with all the questions we considered necessary and then we conducted interactive interviews with the help of Miro. Afterward, we debriefed each session and analyzed the findings which were documented in Google Docs, and shared the results with the team and stakeholders.
Our target audiences were, HR managers, IT Managers, and Managers in general who were in charge of onboarding new employees.
6. Storyboards
• Tell the story visually: They help communicate the context, actions, and emotions of the user in a compelling and relatable way.
• User empathy and understanding: Storyboards help designers put themselves in the user's shoes and empathize with their experience.
• Collaboration and alignment: Storyboards act as a common visual language that bridges the gap between designers, developers, and stakeholders.
7. User Flows
• I developed user flows to illustrate the step-by-step journey of the user, showcasing the touchpoints and interactions across different areas.
• It was important for developers to start implementing functionalities before we presented any designs, in order to gain some time.
• To enhance communication: enabling us to effectively communicate our ideas, concepts, and proposed solutions to other team members, stakeholders, and clients.
8. Concepts
During our design sprint, we began sketching various ideas, but it was crucial to finalize the concept to conduct thorough testing.
One of the concepts we explored was a wizard that allowed users to customize their workspace on desktop. After creating wireframes and testing them, we received positive feedback. However, during the testing session, we asked users about their experience when ordering equipment at Lendis. Many of them mentioned that they placed their orders using their mobile phones.
This feedback led us to hypothesize that a significant portion of our users would be ordering equipment through mobile devices. As a result, we recognized the need to shift our approach and prioritize mobile-first designs specifically for employees.
8. Concepts - Wireframes
9. The solution
After conducting research and a design sprint, we discovered several promising opportunities:
1. Develop an app that allows employees to choose their preferred equipment and furniture.
2. Creating an app that automates logistics and inventory management for Lendis products.
3. Designing an app that seamlessly connects with popular tools like Slack, Personio, Google, and more.
4. Establishing integration capabilities with our customers' and partners' platforms, such as Remote.com or Zalando, for enhanced convenience.
10. High Fidelity Designs
After finalising and testing the concepts, we moved on to the UI design phase. However, before diving into the UI design, we had to create our foundational Figma libraries. This involved customising the libraries with branding colours, logos, and other relevant elements.
To ensure consistency and alignment between designers and developers, I took the responsibility of creating basic guidelines for the key components. These guidelines provided clear instructions and specifications for designers and developers to follow, ensuring a cohesive and unified design system across the project.
11. Prototyping
Once the entire flow was finalised, I prepared a comprehensive prototypes using Figma.in order to test them with users.
12. Pizza Testing Day
• We conduct a usability test in the office, creating a relaxed and engaging atmosphere by providing pizza for the participants.
• We had a significant number of participants who were using the prototype for the first time.
• The task assigned to them was to open their email from Lendis, begin configuring their workspace, review the selected items, and finally, place an order.
13. Handoff
Dev Ready Files V1
Working Prototypes per feature
Design System V1
Guidelines and Documentation V1
MUI FE Library V1
14. Results
• Designs for the MVP were delivered within a record time of 3 months.
• First Version of the Design System was created and implemented, in Figma and in FE Code.
• Guidelines and documentation were provided to support developers in the implementation process.
• Prototypes with interactions and micro animations were included to aid development.
• A white labeling solution was designed specifically for integration with Remote.com and Zalando.com platforms.
15. Learnings
• Design Sprints are the best tool for discovering and resolving significant problems, and they prove to be cost-effective in the long run.
• Failing fast is a valuable learning experience; in our case, we realised the initial concept needed further validation and returned to concept sketching.
• Trust your instincts and provide support to your team, as we experienced some setbacks after the design sprint.
• Always conduct user testing in their own environment to avoid biases, as exemplified by the desktop versus mobile usage scenario.