Principal Designer, UX Strategy, User Research, Vision
Transforming Internal Systems through User Intelligence
The Challenge
Highland Homes recognized a strategic opportunity to redefine their internal application system (MPL) to better support their rapid growth. The mission was to move toward a highly integrated, modern data platform that would empower employees across seven different departments. We saw this as a chance to conduct deep-dive research that would bridge operational gaps and create a "Single Source of Truth," allowing the organization to operate with greater accuracy and speed.
The Solution
In partnership with users across the organization, our team conducted extensive qualitative research to uncover high-value opportunities for automation and integration. We collaborated to synthesize 65 core insights into actionable personas and journey maps that served as the blueprint for the system's redesign. We identified that 69% of user feedback was centered on acute pain points related to manual calculations and "shadow" tracking in Excel.
By facilitating a series of design sprints and heuristic analyses, we identified specific "quick wins" and long-term strategic enhancements. This research-led approach ensured that the new platform was built on a foundation of user trust and operational efficiency, directly addressing the diverse needs of the entire Highland Homes team.
The Results
The research provided Highland Homes with a validated roadmap for digital transformation, prioritizing features that offered the highest business impact and user value.
Identified 40+ Strategic Opportunities: Pinpointed specific technical assessments and workflow automations to shift manual tasks into integrated systems.
Defined 65 Core User Insights: Categorized findings by business impact and priority to ensure the redesign effort focused on high-value ROI.
Validated Multi-Departmental Buy-in: Secured a 111% increase over our original participant goal, ensuring the new strategy accounted for the diverse needs of every core persona.
