Redesigning data visualization for an AI platform for increased actionability

Invisible AI is a next-generation computer vision company that offers a no-code, edge-based visual intelligence platform to improve quality, productivity, and safety in manufacturing industries. Its low-bandwidth and low-cost cameras, which can be deployed at each workstation tracks real-time human motion to help customers run accurate, reliable, and safe operations. Invisible AI helps ensure processes are done correctly and safely, every time.

Role

Lead UX Designer

Team

Chief Operating Officer (PM)
Front-end Developer
Process Engineer
AI Engineer

Contribution

Project Planning
User Research & Analysis
Design Strategy
Ideation
Prototyping (Lo-Fi & Hi-Fi)
User Testing
Design System

Tools

Figma
InVision
linear
Storybook

Duration

6 Weeks

Background

Invisible AI has an AI enabled camera systems placed in automotive manufactory plants that feeds data to the Invisible Platform for its users to analyze and take action. The camera system continuously records data and feeds Live AI data to the Invisible Platform.

Objective

Personalize the Analytics Centre to support end-to-end goals of the users and also, improve user actionability on the Invisible Platform

User Goals

Based on the user pain points and business impact, prioritizing the following goals had the highest impact.
User Goal 1: Navigate to Shift>Camera to observe Stats for Ongoing / Past Shifts
User Goal 2: Observe ongoing throughput to meet Shift targets
User Goal 3: Observe Assembly line to observe operations and productivity

The solution

Additionally Also Designed Pre Shift & Post Shift, Case study coming soon..
Scroll down to see how I got here...

Process &
Deliverables

Learnings
from Research

After conducting cognitive walkthrough, remote user observations and interviews with Customer Success teams, Shift Leaders, and, Process Engineers.
1
Enterprises required a seamless end-to-end platform to ingest and transform data
2
While some well-known competitors, such as Drishti and Retrocausal existed, we had the Early-Mover Advantage
3
Shift Leaders were critical stakeholders that help increase the business value of the enterprise platform

Primary User

We chose to tackle Shift Leaders workflow, motivated by the impact they had with the each production cycle, we felt to understand and, if possible, make meaningful change to manufactory floors.
Note: Toyota is a client, representing Invisible AI's largest user group

User Journey

User Pain Points


From my research learnt of multiple pain points that for the user across the invisible platform, but focusing on the current redesign, these are the ones that are most important.
Too many steps to understand what went wrong in the assembly line
Difficult to understand which camera system belongs to which assembly line
Even when using Assembly monitor(Live Shift) tab the user needs to select shift and camera to view correct information
Hard to understand if targets are being met using the Stats overview
User has to sift through each camera station to understand which station had fault and find actionable data
Single value graphs too difficult to comprehend and compare

Essential Learnings

Usability Issues
Numerous errors and clicks Unalignment between user mental model and application
Increased user effort
Use of jargons in current applications Patterns like Graph increased user effort making it confusing and in-efficient
User Personalization
The impact of singular flow for all users, expectations for each user group is different
30% Longer time
Competitors took 30% more time than ideal performance time to  ingest, manage and transform data (relatively low marginal difference)

Success Metric

Quantitative
Reduce Performance time by 10%
Reduce the amount of time for shift Leaders to perform and complete their tasks
Usability Scores
Measure User engagement and get a Net promoter score between 8-9
Minimizing user effort
Reduce the no. of clicks and no. of errors to a minimum by providing more control and freedom to the user
Qualitative
Implement Clear Metrics
Focus on use of easy to understand numeric and concise writing to increase usability
Increase Actionability
Focus more on providing actionable data along with focus areas to take action
Shift Leader Workflow
Personalize the experience to suit Shift Leaders day-to-day requirements
Problem
The current experience took a data first approach and too many steps for the user to arrive at actionable data. Current workflow had gaps in the user journey to reach their goals  effectively.

User Goals

From conducting user research I learnt that Users were able to complete their task on the Analytics Centre but it caused too much time and high cognitive load
*Click on the User goal to see Ideation for particular User Goal

Prioritization

Old design prioritized AI camera data, designing data visualization around the each Camera System.

In order to prioritize the users, we need to redesign based on user goals and Tasks

In order to prioritize the users, we need to redesign based on user goals and Tasks, Hence breaking down Design objective to three consumable sections.

1: Shift Controls & Configuration
2: Throughput Overview
3: Line Operator Overview

Designing for Shift Leader means that, each shift is considered as a complete time defined block rather than data feed for each individual camera system which is seen on the old Design

Hence, the Shift Controls would need to be designed since old Analytics Centre only supported individual camera selection

Solution 1 :
Shift Controls

Designing for Shift Leader means that, each shift is considered as a complete time defined block rather than data feed for each individual camera system which is seen on the old Design

Hence, the Shift Controls would need to be designed since old Analytics Centre only supported individual camera selection
Whereas Redesign would need to consider complete set of cameras for each assembly line which the Shift leader is responsible for.
Reducing the strain on the shift leader to keep track of all AI camera systems which are attached to the assembly line they are monitoring, recreating a grouped data
Simple Dropdown cannot be used Since each of these dropdowns have additional feature elements that need to be considered
Final Design replacing components based on material design Library
Redesigned Shift controls along with existing page controls
This Redesign Eliminates the need for the shift leader to select each camera system individually when they are overseeing any particular shift or assembly line

Solution 2:
Throughput Overview

The old design showed throughput overview stats but, the users did not have any context for what these numbers mean, i.e. Is the throughput good to meet targets, Is it deviating from expected.
From my research, I was able to understand that the system showed multiple streams of data which was captured by AI Camera to show the throughput

I collaborated with System Architect AI engineers to understand what all data was captured by the AI system.
leverage the power of AI for better data visualization, I brought the idea to my PM to be able to filter through data to set trigger points for incoming data from the system. Once, the team was on board, I was able to propose the idea for building and Action Centre, which would automatically notify the users for anomalies in the assembly line
The process to understand and design the Action Centre involved looking at all data points on the platform, Understand how data was gathered by the AI system, look at how the APIs were pulling this data, Work with engineers to understand the overhead from their team to deploy Alerts based on set thresholds for the data.
Jumped into wireframing, the below screen shows the different interactions and changes made based on the review sessions and feedback received from the team.
We finally settled on the below designs for throughput overview and action center given the time constraint we were operating in, moving certain features to the future design sprint
The new redesigned throughput overview is split between two cards.
The Stats card which shows ongoing throughput, projected throughput and the downtime caused in the overall shift along with hourly breakdown to show deviation from target.
The Action Center shows Alerts based on High, Medium and Low priority, which can be filtered through. To understand what went wrong the users can go to the camera feed to observe exact instance that triggered the alert.

Solution 3:
Line Overview

In the old design the Line Overview was shown by a series of graphs showing single input plots. What, the user primarily wanted was deviation from the set normal for which, the user had to manually look at both graphs and compare charts.
This task was vital to the success of the old Analytics Centre, but with the approach taken for the redesign, This information only provides addition information to Stats and Action center. Closing the user loop, the graph information supports triggers from Action Center.
After initial ideation sessions with the PM and development team, I was able to narrow down the Primary features for the Line overview card, going into another round of wireframing, I was able to narrow down on the final Line Overview card based on the feedback.
Final Design...
The new redesigned Line overview shows primary timing information at each station. This release of the design shows two input bar graph for showing comparison between cycle time and wait time and also the average for the whole assembly. Additionally, the user can also jump into the video feed to see live data. Future design will include option to add additional data inputs to see the overview.
Finally... putting all these cards together to build the redesigned Shift Leader workflow after going through the layout design iteration I arrived at the final screens.
Go to Solution ↑

User Goals

Based on the user pain points and business impact, prioritizing the following goals will have the highest impact.
User Goal 1: Navigate to Shift>Camera to observe Stats for Ongoing / Past Shifts
User Goal 2: Observe ongoing throughput to meet Shift targets
User Goal 3: Observe Assembly line to observe operations and productivity

The solution

Additionally Also Designed Pre Shift & Post Shift, Case study coming soon..
Scroll down to see how I got here...

Impact

The Redesigned Shift Leader Workflow was Deployed in 2000+ camera Systems and used by 250+ Shift leaders.

Platform Usability was tested using analytics, post task System Usability Score and, Shift End Customer Satisfaction Survey.
300%
User Adoption
Engagement increased from avg 1.4hrs to 4hrs
25%↓
Task completion Time
20%
User Satisfaction
70%↓
Time to resolution
Old: 9.2 min | New: 2.8 min

Key Takeaways

Balancing team scales
A balance between the product as well as the engineering team was crucial.

Designing for fast-paced Environment
Designing giving importance to the user and the company without compromise

Evangelize the design
Be an advocate for design, even when it's not easy

Challenges
Startup Environment - Fast Delivery focused environment prioritized Deployment. Hence, needed to enroll all teams to prioritize users and support the design process.

Project Presentation

Please have a look at the presentation below to view case study