Empowering Teams to Drive Customer Impact
in Home & Field Services
Role
Head of UX, Home & Field Services
Company
Xplor Technologies
Year
2024
THE CHALLENGE
UX designers were working in silos within individual product teams, relying on product managers as intermediaries.
This setup caused misalignment, hindered collaboration, and prioritized feature delivery over understanding technician needs, limiting the creation of impactful, user-centric solutions.
My Vision for Change
I saw an opportunity to unify the teams around user value and foster a culture of collaboration.
Key initiatives included:
Cross-functional Collaboration
Facilitated workshops and early wins to bring designers, developers, and PMs together.
Shifted focus from feature requests to understanding the core jobs technicians needed to get done, creating a shared language.
Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework
Empowering Designers
Designers felt uncomfortable presenting directly to cross-functional teams and facing scrutiny from development, especially those accustomed to working solely through product managers.
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I empowered designers to present work directly, articulate rationale tied to JTBD, and incorporate feedback, improving design quality and user understanding.
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The Transformation
Teams moved from working in silos to embracing a shared purpose with collaborative mindset:
Agile Integration
Designers embedded in sprints, reducing rework and ensuring continuous design contribution.
Embedded User Feedback
Established long-term feedback loops with technicians to iteratively refine solutions.
The Results
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35% faster feature releases
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31% fewer usability support tickets
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22% faster task completion
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18% higher feature adoption & 21% improved task success
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20% faster design/development cycles & 35% fewer UI bugs
THE OUTCOME
Improved designer confidence
Designers became proactive contributors to product strategy, bringing forward innovative ideas based on user insights and a strong understanding of technician "jobs".​​
Stronger alignment across teams
Direct and consistent collaboration between designers and developers improved the efficiency of Agile sprints and reduced cycle times for delivering impactful features.
Greater focus on technician needs
Teams developed a deep understanding of technician workflows which enabled them to effectively solve real user problems, such as simplifying complex scheduling workflows.
A culture of shared ownership
Designers, product managers, and developers became united in their goal of delivering seamless, customer-centric solutions.