Impact and Results

Through advocating for and conducting a two week diary study before starting design work, I was able to identify that there did not exist a user need for a feature for which work was scheduled. Therefore, the key outcomes of this project were:

• Prevented the use of design, testing and developer resources from developing a solution that would not be adopted
• Unlocked those resources to make more meaningful contributions

Through user research, I discovered that this new feature would fall in the "No" quadrant

"...Jarry shone in this role providing critical analysis of our users’ challenges and opportunities while being unbiased to the solution. Thanks to his efforts, we were able to make sound decisions on where best to put our resources in order to make the most impact with our users."

• Juli Waddell (Manager, Digital Design)

The Project

At the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, I was on a project team building internal tools for pension payment and data management. I was asked to design an improved printing experience for a suite of browser based applications. A printing feature had existed in the older desktop apps that were being deprecated and the default browser printing did not work well due to how the dashboards and tables had been designed.

In order to design this I needed to know:

• How does printing currently work and how do people actually use it?
• What types of tasks require printing and with what frequency?
• What role does printing play in the larger context of those tasks?
• What parts of the current experience have opportunities for improvement?
• And discover a whole lot more from talking to users

Toolbar in the older app Far right is the printing feature

Understanding the Context

As a first step, I uncovered existing organizational knowledge. I conducted stakeholder research and talked to product owners and business managers about the role printing played for our users.

I learned that: