Mark Godwin Design
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As a Senior Product Designer, I collaborated with a UX team to enhance EcoEHS’s incidents module, addressing usability concerns and mitigating the risk of losing a major enterprise client.
EcoOnline
Senior Product Designer
4 Months
Enterprise (B2B) Environmental, Health & Safety application.
2x Senior Product Designers, 1x VP Design, 1x Junior UX Designer
Figma, Storybook, Jira, Confluence, Excel, Teams, MS Forms
EcoEHS received a negative NPS score due to its overly complicated incident reporting module. Front-line workers found it cumbersome, leading to delayed or missing reports as managers had to follow up manually.
As a critical update to a flagship product, the project was led by the VP of Design and primarily composed of senior designers.
NPS scores for EcoEHS Incident module, jumped from negative to positive.
Clients found an increase in the number of reports being recorded.
Metsa remained one of EcoOnline’s main clients as a result of the incident update.
We conducted video interviews with EcoEHS users, utilizing scripted templates and response-tracking spreadsheets. To ensure accuracy and minimize bias, team members were assigned specific roles for questioning, recording, and moderating.
Customers were not utilizing our products fully. They often didn’t know them well enough.
The incident module was hard to understand and resulted in drop offs in submitted reports
Photos are key. More focus on images would help investigators.
Summary notifications could actually help improve client’s safety culture.
“This site has a long history. It’s been here for over 100 years now in various different kind of ways. It’s where the first steel wheel was made so its got a lot of history and legacy, but when I started here 2 years ago there was a terrible safety culture. It was like walking back in time. You walk back in there and it smelt smokey, horrible and there was oil everywhere. People didn’t ever really see the hazards or the danger because thats how it’s always been. It’s like 1950’s technology in 2020. It’s unreal. And that kind of culture has stuck around even though we have now moved to our state of the art plant.”
- Andy (Health & Safety Co-ordinator) @ GKN Wheels & Structures
The print feature needed some additional settings to be useful.
The print feature needed some additional settings to be useful.
Users would benefit from a single form view and a stepped form view.
Our research revealed that front-line staff were reluctant to report incidents due to the time-consuming and complex entry process. Infrequent app usage further reduced engagement. To address this, we introduced a quick incident report form accessible via QR code, capturing only essential data with an emphasis on photo uploads. Line managers could then investigate and complete reports later, streamlining the process.
QR Code generator tile component.
The quick report elements would lead with photo uploads.
All steps of quick reporting for front-line workers, accessed from a QR code scan on any device.
Line managers were responsible for following up on quick reports from front-line staff, requiring a more detailed incident view for thorough investigations. These users spent up to three hours daily navigating multiple reports to add insights. To support their workflow, we introduced both rapid and detailed reporting options. The detailed report allowed users to input extensive information in either a stepped or full-view format, with a summary upon submission to ensure completeness.
The new report launcher provided managers with the ability to create rapid or detailed 'complete' reports.
Details capture was the first step of a potentially long list of form sections.
EHS Managers and supervisors would have the ability to add multiple actions in a single step.
A check and submit section gave managers a final overview to ensure no steps were missed.
To streamline reporting for front-line users, we enabled QR code generation. These codes could be printed on various materials and placed on-site, allowing users to scan them with their devices. This would launch the quick report in a browser, linking directly to the client’s EcoEHS instance.
QR codes could be generated and downloaded then printed and placed anywhere the client needs.
We were able to visit EcoOnline clients in the United Kingdom and Finland to perform some evaluative testing. We met with front-line workers and mangers on sites such as waste management landfills, Formula 1 labs and food production plants.The feedback whilst positive also helped point out some areas that we had initially missed. The main point being personal phones were often not allowed on site, so the quick reports would need to also be generated for approved on site devices.
“I hate filling out incident reports but the quick scan of the QR code on my phone makes it a lot easier. I would be happy to do that.”
- Mike @ FCC Environment
We often don’t let people have their phones on site, so can we also have the quick report on a PC in the office?”
- Kamal @ Viridor
Metsa were unhappy with our current offerings and stated they were going to look elsewhere if the product did not improve. This client was one of our highest paying contracts, we had to be careful what we showed them.
We took extra time in evaluative research with Metsa spending an extra 2 days with their team to truly understand their problems and finding solutions. This discovery would fix some of their key issues with the EcoEHS Incidents module. We showed them just enough.
Don’t over promise. You have to be careful what you show in your potential solution as not all aspects of your design may make it into the final product.
