Swift SMS Gateway
It starts with a vision.
I was selected by Swift SMS Gateway for an end-to-end online delivery. I started by curating specific questions to ask existing customers. Some were developers, some were business owners and others who led technology stacks. One user was Jon Smith. After interviewing the users, and speaking with developers and staff at Swift we re-evaluated who the actual decision makers of sms messaging technology were.
What an interesting discovery!
After discussions and brainstorming, it was discovered that the real decision makers were actually developers! They were the ones who did the research and then advised management and leaders what technology to implement for millions and millions of text messages. Knowing that, I developed and iterated 5 different persona’s that represented the target audience and gained buy-in from all management.
It’s prototype time!
From the persona’s I started to dig into developing an interactive prototype using AxureRP. I presented a develop-centric approach.
Using the persona’s, it was an easy sell. Rather than everyone using their own personal opinions, we were able to refer back to the persona’s and ask “Is that what Bob would want?” or “Where would Bill want to go from here to accomplish a particular task?”
From these discoveries, the CTA of “Not a Developer?” was born for those who were not technical.
Final design and coding
I’m a believer in failing fast. Spend just as much time prototyping as you need to and then start writing code to get to the end user.
The WordPress content management system was leveraged and the Bones framework/theme was chosen due to its light weight. Stylesheets were built leveraging LESS using the CodeKit precompiler to convert to minified .scss files.
Simple flat design
I used the corporate branding and colours to build out the design elements in Adobe Photoshop. Much of the design took place “in-browser” using style tiles, but there were some aspects which required Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to accomplish. For example, the illustrations of the hands and graphics/icons were done in Illustrator.
A great success!
The final result was launched and after user feedback made a few tweaks. But all-in-all, a successful project which started with proper research. The research made all the difference to gain buy-in from different department heads. Everyone had a voice and solutions were met diplomatically while keeping the end user the main focus.
