Case Study


NETGEAR INSIGHT

NETGEAR is a multinational computer networking company. It produces networking hardware for consumers, businesses, and service providers. Insight is a Cloud-based management platform that enables easy setup and configuration of NETGEAR Insight managed network devices.

Project Overview

LEAD NEXT GENERATION DESIGN 

OBJECTIVE

Shape, establish, and clarify a vision and approach for enhancing the user experience and interface touch-points for the Insight product.

MY ROLE

Define, lead, and execute UX strategy to enhance multidisciplinary team cohesion, standardizing processes, improving efficiencies, and increasing the quality of product design across all customer touch-points.

Product Design

My Approach

CREATE A UX ROADMAP

  • Establish and communicate the UX vision

  • Identify attainable goals

  • Consider general timelines

  • Anticipate outcomes

  • Acknowledge change

MAPPING THE LANDSCAPE

Updating the information architecture (IA) diagrams of the Insight product provided me with the perfect opportunity to become quickly familiar with all pages and flows. I recreated the diagrams integrating a page identification system, which could map directly to the Sketch artboards.


BENCHMARKING THE USER EXPERIENCE

I  began to evaluate existing metrics to establish a user experience benchmark. This would enable me to gauge the products' relative performance and track design improvements over time. 

PRIORITIZING CHANGE

  • Created a list of design enhancement opportunities, UX tasks, design ideas, etc (>30)

  • Defined the value of each list item

  • Mapped each item to an existing business goal

  • Estimated duration of effort

  • Evaluated each list item across two criteria - effort and impact

CROSS-DOMAIN GUIDANCE

The Insight product design and layout was originally intended for a more limited spectrum of devices and screen resolutions. I provided guidance directly to engineering illustrating the approach toward accomodating layout adaptivity for the web and native app experiences. 

The Results

CHANGE IS HARD

Lessons Learned

Investing in UX design is a big step  for any company and it can take time to integrate design thinking. The more an organization embraces and integrates design practices, the more positive business outcomes it sees, including when it comes to product, position, and profit. 

  • Being the voice of the customer takes courage and resolve

  • Low UX maturity is defined by shipping bad design

  • Delivering quantity over quality is not sustainable

  • True design leadership is valuable and can lead to great change

  • Abstract is a great tool
KIRK WICKS UX PRODUCT DESIGN