Part II – Designing a Secure Document Repository; Case Study 2019

This was an EPIC Agile story, so I have broken it down into two posts. This is Part II (Part I is here)

Introduction to Part II

Part I focussed on getting the fundamentals right, ‘ doing your homework’. Defining realistic challenges, driving collaboration and being lean. Setting the groundwork to Part II, here the focus is on on user task, error handling and future services.

Let’s dive in

4.4 Adding Drag n’ drop to push efficiency

Single drag remained a must-have for Phase I. Allowing a CAA / CA to ‘grab’ a file from the repository and drop it into a presentation was key in-house legacy functionality.

4.5 Keep your user informed with themed error handling

UX best practice is clear, keep the use informed at every stage of their journey. Here, the visual design uses colour to indicate what type of error message is displayed. Remember graceful error handling is the preferred method – see here for examples. User can receive messages that are;

• Informative – This tells the user something useful. There has been no human error
• Warning – An input error has occurred, i.e. incorrect characters.
• Error – A user action is required to rectify the error before the journey can continue

4.6 Mimicking existing navigational patterns

Building parallels between desktop and iOS application is always problematic. Nevertheless preservation of IOS UX navigation patterns needed to be considered. Existing navigation had already been learnt by the users, therefore it was a quick and logical win to leverage this pattern within existing document repositories.

5.0 Providing a vision with future services

5.1 How to ensure multiple client privacy

Bulk transfer is a frequently requested back-office feature. CAA power users prep and create meeting all day everyday. All meeting have a base framework, setting this base structure the CAA responsibility so enabling this with a few clicks is a quick win.

5.3 Maintain privacy cross client

With 100’s of meetings a week the CAA user base require quick access, within a strictly confidential framework, to add personalised financial data within the context of a fund statements, financial forecasts, performance metrics of client portfolios, and insights into investment best practice. Within a click, the CA/CAA can access information such as: security level, transaction list, exchange rates and much more. It is also possible to drill down into the fund rates performance metrics.

6.0 Design Systems

This project enabled me to get into the nitty gritty problem solving of a real world issue. In parallel, I took the opportunity to begin the foundations of a Design System. Starting very informally, purely within the Sketch App environment, and working directly with Stakeholders and other UX’ers developing a new online guideline portal – similar to the online guidelines here. As support I also designed a live component library and a reference for perceptual and functional pattens.

7.0 Summary

Part I and II

With significant delivery primarily on an internal web-based platform enabled this world class asset management and retail bank to communicate their value proposition within and established secure meeting manager app. As a result, CA and CAA both were able to both add value to their client meetings efficiently within a secure environment.

Part I – Designing a Secure Document Repository