SATCOM Application Redesign
The Problem
The U.S. Airforce is constantly monitoring global satellite communications to ensure communications for special operations are successful and observe whether there may be intentional interference with communications.
The desktop application used by the Operators had been designed an implemented by various teams of engineers without consideration for the user experience. Over the course of five years, the interface had become overly complex with duplicate functionality and costly mistakes were consistently happening.
Although there was a specific workflow, the SATCOM application did not follow in any logical sequence. Operator training time could take months, at which time new Operators were often rotated in. A common complaint was that too much irrelevant information was displayed while critical information was often obscured.
The Goal
The goal was to create a consistent design system with a clear information hierarchy through a series of final deliverables. These included a new components library to be used across all future SATCOM applications, wireframes for the main SATCOM dashboards, and UX guidelines to be followed for all future development within the applications. The application should be workflow centric so Operators can intuitively monitor the overall status of satellite communication that is heavy on data visualization.
The Process
Over the course of a year, we went through an extensive discovery phase which included trips to the U.S. Space Command/Space Operations in Colorado Springs, CO. During discovery we analyzed the current applications, conducted stakeholder interviews, developed new workflows, created user scenarios and personas.
Following the discovery phase, we entered the design phase at which time we developed visual wireframes for the component library and the SATCOM applications. This was followed by the UX Guidelines documentation.
It had no clear workflow, was visually unappealing and the training time for Operators was anywhere from 1-3 months.
Component Library
Application Redesign
As you can see at the top the workflow consists of Task, Monitor, and Analyze. There are also a series of monitoring icons which allows Operators to instantly know if a satellite may be compromised.
UX Guidelines
