Halliburton Edge Platform

Overview

Halliburton is one of the world's largest providers of products and services for the ever-evolving needs of the energy industry. Edge Platform is a data-loaded  operating system used on oil rigs worldwide for real-time well construction and production.

Role

Senior UX Designer, Design Lead
2021 — 2023

— Context

Drilling control room by SLB

Platform

Edge Platform provides the ability to monitor, analyze, and manage data within a single integrated platform to provide better insights & efficient operations on the oil rigs. 

Due to huge amount of data sources and protocols support, is a game changer in the industry. The system collects data from hardware sensors in real time, analyzes and monitors it for quick, actionable insights.
Remote Operations Command Center at Halliburton

Edge Team

The project is a live part of a huge ecosystem of Halliburton digital services for drilling automation. An agile-driven development team of 50+ specialists worldwide is working on continuous delivery for over 5 year. 

The main goal of UX team is to constantly refine existing functionality, as well as support team with new features development to bring extra value for the end users.
Drilling rig in Norway

Users

As the platform operates directly on the oil rigs, the main users are rig crew, data engineers and company representatives. The data to be analysed and represented is highly domain specific, which leads to a need for close cooperation with users and industry consultants.

UX team has an access to over 30 specialists for continuous research and validation. All the work was not only carried with the highest UX level, but also continuously aligned with legal procedures.

— Process

Solid design process ensure the product is intuitive, efficient, and enjoyable for the users, as well as makes development process easier. Here are steps I've followed to build a UX design process on Edge.

Step 1

Understanding Users

Started by learning about the users (mainly drillers and data engineers), including their needs, goals, and behaviours. This helped to create a design that meets their needs and addresses their pain points.
Step 2

Defining the Problems

Every task I faced started from clearly defined problem I was about to solve and what team hoped to achieve. This helped stay focused and ensure that design efforts are aligned with business objectives.
Step 3

Conducting User Research

To gather all necessary data about the users and their needs and to validate hypotheses I've conducted continuous user research. This included usability testing, interviews, surveys, and other methods.
Step 4

Designing the Interface

Using what we've learned about the users and their needs we started design the flows and user interface of the feature. This includes creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity mockups.
Step 5

Testing and Refinement

Design was tested with users to gather feedback and make necessary improvements. This process was ongoing, as the team continues to gather user data and develop extra product features.
Step 6

Iteration and Support

Once design was validated, it proceeded to dev department. At the same time most features continued UX enhancement process after release due to new user responses or extra requirements.
Direct contact and ongoing validation of design decisions was a vital part of every new task. As of now, have conducted over 520 hours of user interviews and testings.
Used complex prototyping to showcase functionality and allow users to put their hands on proposed solution. VOC sessions allow to iterate faster with greater result.

Research

We've built a systematic and iterative process of UX research for understanding the needs, motivations, and behaviours of our users. Among others, the following methodologies were used:

— Interviews:  conducted interviews with drillers and data engineers to gather in-depth insights about their experiences and workflows.

— Surveys: used this quick and efficient way to gather data from a large number of users including both open-ended or closed-ended questions.

— Usability testing: to identify areas for improvement conducted sessions with users to perform specific tasks using a product and collected data on their performance and experiences.
Some of conducted research artefacts 

— Results

Hundreds of interactive Figma components with variants combined into complex elements and sections. Provided with detailed documentation.

Design System

To ensure consistency and cohesiveness across the Halliburton products and Edge internally, UX team develops and utilises DS. It's especially important since multiple designers and developers are working on the project.
Due to environment and context of the product being used mainly on oil rigs, design decisions consider contrast dark theme as a default. At the same time every application has light mode to cover the needs of company representatives and data engineers working in more office-like conditions.
For building a style regulations an Atomic design approach was used. All the components and layouts were iteratively tested for accessibility due to standards.

Platform Enhancements and
New Features

Improved navigation — since the project is a complex or large-scale application, reorganising content, creating clear hierarchy, and adding helpful labeling were involved.
Enhanced usability — includes redesigning forms, simplifying data entry, and optimising layout and visual design.
Enhanced accessibility — application is compatible with assistive technologies, designed for good color contrast. 
Clear information architecture — application data tasks and flows become more efficient and streamlined.

15+ new complex applications developed

700+ screens of product and prototypes

Brand new notification system with sound

3D drilling visualisation application

Edge Platform provides users with various information visualising models, including raw data, plots, SCADA views, 3D visualisation, and others.
3D visualisation view  combines different information layers depending on current activities and tasks.
All the elements are highly functional and interactive to provide users with extra data if needed.
Dashboard based approach provides users with all vital data at a glance, at the same time linked with deeper layers for more details.

UX Documentation

Reworked documentation to provide a clear, detailed, and organized overview of the user needs, goals, and behaviors that the product aims.
UX documentation now:
— Has clear explanation of the product or service, including its purpose, target audience, and key features
— Highlights the user research that was conducted, including all insights from user interviews, surveys, or usability tests
— Prescribes the visual design and style guidelines, as well as detailed description of the user flows and interactions, including wireframes, prototypes, and user flows

Sound Design

In line with working on new alarms system, team faced a requirement for sound notifications. Current design system didn't support such a functionality, so we worked from scratch.
Sound environment on oil rigs and control centres brings specific to the sound design of notifications samples.
After conducting user and industry research, a custom scalable library of samples was created and validated on real-time operations in field.

— Metrics

Task completion rate

Increased the percentage of users who are able to successfully complete a tasks or achieve goals. UX design is effectively guiding users through the process.

Time on task

Measuring the time it takes users to complete tasks was used as one of metrics. We achieved a shorter timings on tasks, as well as reduced the number of clicks.

Errors rate

The number of errors or mistakes made by users while using the product was significantly reduced, being a good indicator of UX design effectiveness.

User satisfaction

Due to latest surveys, demo feedbacks and other research methods, users are much more satisfied with overall experience with the product and performance.

— Takeaways

Deeper Understanding of user needs

Through user research and testing, I gained a deeper understanding of the needs and motivations of domain-specific specialists who will be using the product and how to work with them effectively.

Collaboration and communication skills

As project involved working with a huge team, I learned how more effectively communicate my design decissions, resolve conflicts and work collaboratively with others to achieve a common goal.

Problem-solving skills and Design Techniques

Dealing with complex problems that required creative and analytical thinking to solve, I learned how to approach design challenges and come up with effective solutions. Also improve design skills.

Experience of Leading design team

A crucial point for expertise development is to take extra responsibility to bring extra value for the product. I've gained a lot of experience in organising design team workflows and taking whole ownership on the design.

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