Aarti Shriniwar

Product Designer
About me

‣ User Experience (UX) designer with 10+ years of experience in

designing products for both consumer and enterprise applications.

‣ Involved in all stages of product development. Collaborated with

cross-functional teams to deliver innovative solutions that meet user

needs and business goals.

‣ Experience in leading design direction, strategy, team, and vision for

next generation product experiences.

My journey so far
10+ years of experience

Principle Designer
2014 - current

Design Lead

Interaction Designer

Interaction Designer

Interaction Designer Intern

Area of expertise

Understand user & Product design User research Collaboration

business need
• Product
• Business
• Engineering
• Cross
functions
Case studies

1. EdgeRover app 2. Design system 3. WD Discovery

EdgeRover app
Mobile app
Goals
Desktop & mobile

Design desktop application that provides, Design a single mobile app replacing several apps.

- A single view of the user content that’s scattered across

multiple devices.
- Supports device management capabilities.

My Cloud OS5

My Cloud Home SanDisk ibi

Direct attached storage devices SMZ Ixpand Drive

EdgeRover App
Desktop & mobile
Project team
Mobile app

Product owner 1 Designer 2 Content writer 1

Developer 6 Researcher 1 QA 3
Current state
Multiple devices, multiple apps

My Cloud Home My Cloud OS5 SanDisk ibi Ixpand Products

Challenges
Mobile apps

The existence of multiple apps within the WD ecosystem surfaces a few problems:

‣ Huge overhead of managing and maintaining multiple mobile apps with similar core functionalities

‣ The inability to engage with consumers in a cohesive way

‣ The inability to address pain points in the most effective way

‣ Customers have to download multiple apps creating cumbersome experience

Process
Mobile app

Understand user & Analyze data Information Concepts

business needs Architectureure

Wireframes Prototype User testing Dev handoff

User research & requirements gathering
Feature audit
Lead by product owner
Understand user needs
Collaborative session
User survey

‣ How mobile users manage their content on the phone?

‣ Is there any difference between iOS and Android users
in the way they manage content?
User research
User survey

Set up

‣ Six iOS users, and six Android users

‣ Each user was presented with a set of 18 questions

Objectives

‣ What do users do when they run out of space on their mobile phone.

‣ Do they use a cloud service on the phone? Do they pay for it?

‣ Do they back up of their phone? What steps do they follow?

‣ What tools does the user use for editing and managing content?

‣ How do they listen to music on their phone?

‣ What do users think will improve their experience?

Collect & analyze data
Usertesting platform
Findings
User survey

‣ Editing photos was the number one activity that all the users across iOS and android did on their phone,

followed by editing documents and videos.

‣ Most of the users (9/12) use the default, built-in photo editing function.

‣ Most of the users use cloud services to save and manage their content (8/12).

‣ All the users (12/12) ran into a situation where, at some point, they did not have enough space on their phone.

‣ When the users don’t have enough space on their phones, they uninstall apps, delete content they no longer

need, buy more cloud space, transfer content to other devices, or upgrade their phones.

‣ On Android, users used Google Drive, Amazon cloud, and One Drive. On iOS, iCloud was more popular.
Opportunities identified
User survey

‣ None of the users (0/12) owned any mobile attached storage device. Some of them were not even aware of

such a device. There is a huge opportunity to upsell MAS devices to these users.

‣ Some users do more than one backup to the cloud, computer, or external devices. These users might be

interested in paying for backup services.

‣ Almost all the users run into the issue of lack of storage. Providing tools to manage their content can be very

useful.

‣ When designing the EdgeRover mobile app, we should provide tools to help users increase their productivity

and efficiently manage the limited space on their mobile device.

Design phase
Information architecture
Mobile app
Concepts
Mobile app
Wireframes
Mobile app
User flows
Onboarding
Onboarding screens
Sample screens
Copy files from USB
Sample screens
Social & cloud import
Sample screens
Search tab
Sample screens
Me tab
Sample screens
High fidelity
Mobile app
Beta launch
Beta launch
Goal

‣ Validate quality, stability, reliability of s/w & hardware through user feedback.

‣ Obtain feedback to improve the user experience.

‣ Gather real life user experience and use cases.

Target users

‣ Tested with 50 users.

‣ 25 users tested mobile app with single-bay NAS device and other 25 with dual-drive.
Beta feedback
Organized in aha tool
Results & next steps

The beta was a success! We gathered user feedback and currently

we're working on implementing the solutions in the app!
Design system
Mobile, tablet, & web
Goals
Design system

‣ Identify areas of inconsistency in the EdgeRover desktop app.

‣ Identify missing UI components, and define rules for those components in the Design system.

‣ Provide responsive design for the components.

‣ Review design recommendations with the stakeholder and get approval.

Challenges
Design system

‣ Multiple designers worked on different features. When a component was not available in the design system, a designer

would create the component without adding it to the design system.

‣ There was a lack of consistency in the EdgeRover desktop app.

‣ The design system was not solid enough.

‣ There was no dedicated person assigned to the design system due to a lack of resources.
Project team
Mobile app

Designer 1 Developer 1 QA 1
Process
Design system

Analyze Existing Find Areas Of Identify components Define Rules

Screens Improvement needed

Provide Responsive Collaborate with Add components to Dev handoff

Design Stakeholders Design System
Design system examples
Banner component
Design system example

Banner in landscape mode Banner in portrait mode

Banner component (mobile)
Design system example

One banner Multiple banner Banner without action

Banner component guidelines
Design system example
Other components I worked on …
Toast message
Design system example

Tablet

Mobile

Component documentation
Right side panel
Design system example

Tablet

Mobile

Component documentation
Small modal window
Design System Example

Landscape view

Mobile view

Component documentation
Large modal window
Design system example

Desktop Component documentation

Results
Design system

‣ Recommended components were added to the design system.

‣ After the components were implemented, it removed inconsistency in the app.

‣ The component specs helped all the designers in the team to be on the same page.
WD Discovery
Desktop app
Background
WD Discovery

Western Digital is the industry leader in hardware devices. Millions of direct attached devices are sold every year. When these

devices are shipped to the market, they are pre-installed with WD Installer, WD Security, and WD Drive utility installers.
Case Study
WD Discovery

Problem Solution KPIs

Problem
WD Discovery

‣ All direct attached storage devices are pre-installed with multiple softwares before they leave the factory. By

the time the user purchases the device, a new version of software is available and the user may not know

about this.

‣ If user’s had any feedback on existing software or issues, they cannot reach out to the company from within

the app. There is no way to communicate directly to the user or send them a notification.

‣ In the existing apps, there is no way to promote third party apps.

Solution
WD Discovery

‣ To develop a cloud based app that will,

‣ Host other apps and services.

‣ Eliminate the need of installing multiple applications on millions of devices.

‣ Establish a mechanism to connect to the users and send them notifications.

‣ Allow users to share their feedback.

‣ Provide space to promote third party apps

KPIs
WD Discovery

‣ Get communication channel established with 1 Million plus users.

‣ Provide space to promote and market third party apps to generate new revenue.

‣ Remove the need of pre installing multiple softwares on all direct attached devices.
Project team
WD Discovery

Product owner 1 Designer 2 Content writer 1

Developer 4 Researcher 2 QA 4
My Role
WD Discovery

‣ Led design direction strategy and execution of end-to-end user experience.

‣ Collaboration with cross-functional teams.

‣ Worked closely with product owner, technical writer, UX researcher, stakeholders, QA, and engineering team.
My Role
WD Discovery

- Led design direction, strategy and execution of end-to-end user experience including collaboration with cross-functional

teams. Worked closely with product owner, technical writer, researcher, stakeholders, QA, and engineering team.
Process
WD Discovery

Requirements Concepts/ Framework User Study High-fidelity

Gathering & Wireframes
Discovery
Final designs (Hi-Fi)
Desktop app
Result
WD Discovery

- Today WD Discovery is the only software installer that goes on every direct attached storage device.

- We have one million software installs.

- We have established a way to communicate directly with users.

- Users now get the latest version of the software irrespective of when they have purchased the hardware.
Thank you!