SAS Institute Inc. hired a team of eight visual and UX designers from digital agency, Globant, to develop modernized design solutions for two of their most powerful supply-chain platforms, Demand and Assortment Planning. Seeking my skills in visual design, storytelling, and leadership, and because of my past experience as a UX and Visual Designer at Globant, I was requested by senior leadership at the agency to support the project as an independent contractor.

Logistically, the scope, tight timeline, and amount of stakeholders and designers involved in this project offered both immense opportunity and challenge. SAS Assortment and Demand Planning tools require years of training (some stakeholders had been at the company 10+ years), and the Globant team was required to onboard, analyze, synthesize, design, and deliver modernized solutions in a timeframe of just three months.

From a system perspective, there was much to be desired from users. After user research and interviews we identified key system challenges and user pain points we prioritized solving in the UX Modernization process. Some of the pain points we heard repeatedly included:

• “Too clicky”: Dissatisfying user experience with too many clicks required to accomplish a goal

• Steep learning curve: While some users had over a decade of experience in the platform, newcomers were faced with steep learning curves and overwhelming amounts of data and possible actions

• Lack of personalization: System was not set up to adapt to the preferences and settings of unique users

• Out-dated look & feel: Team felt uninspired and fatigued with the user interface

• Inability to quickly update data: Platform lacked simple UX elements, like viewing images in a grid or row

Throughout the engagement, the SAS and Globant team operated within an agile methodology in order to foster collaboration and allow for a flexible and iterative design process. With the guidance of a project manager, the Globant design team relied on the principles of scrum and worked within a series of sprints. Daily sprint meetings and team updates kept the designers aligned and quickly called out roadblocks.

The project scope highlighted a four-phase design thinking process which set expectations and identified key deliverables. The four phases were broken down into Immersion & Analysis, Define & Design, Test & Iterate, and Refine & Deliver.

At the end of the three-month engagement, the Globant design team had produced a huge amount of work. Included in the final deliverables were two in-depth journey maps, more than 80 low-fidelity wireframes, an updated taxonomy, design-system documentation, more than 40 high-fidelity mockups, two entirely clickable high-fidelity prototypes (one for the Demand Planning experience and one for the Assortment Planning experience), and 50 new Figma components to be added to existing SAS Figma libraries. Globant’s workflows and findings were presented weekly in sessions with SAS stakeholders, producing a vast library of insights and process documentation.