Sulzer Blue Box™: UX Optimization
Company & Challenge
Sulzer, headquartered in Winterthur, is a global company specializing in fluid engineering. Sulzer has established itself as a market leader, particularly in the areas of pumping, agitating, mixing, separating and application technologies for fluids of all kinds.
The BLUE BOX™ team at Sulzer was faced with the challenge of improving the user experience (UX) of its pump optimization application. The goal was to optimize usability, visual appearance and brand perception.
Design Sprint: The starting signal for a better UX
In order to improve the UX in a targeted manner, Sulzer worked with Raskin on a five-day design sprint. This structured process developed by Google combines design thinking, prototyping and user testingto develop innovative solutions within a few days.
Design sprint process
- Understanding: The entire team defined the problem and set the goals.
- Outlining solutions: Creative ideas were developed and discussed.
- Decide: The most promising approaches were selected.
- Develop prototype: A clickable prototype was created.
- Testing: Five test users validated the results in approximately 30-minute sessions.
The sprint team consisted of seven participants: five members of the Sulzer product team and two UX consultants from Raskin. The first two days took place as a whole team, while on days 3 and 4 Raskin took over the design and prototyping work. On the fifth day, the results were evaluated and validated.
The prototype developed in the sprint formed the basis for the new BLUE BOX™ application.
Expert Review: Fine-tuning the UX
The design sprint was followed by an expert reviewto further optimize the user interface. The UX experts from Raskin analyzed the mock-ups created by Sulzer from the perspective of user-friendliness.
Procedure of the Expert Review
- Analysis: Evaluation of the new screens using established UX heuristics (including Jakob Nielsen's usability principles).
- Identification of usability problems: Examination of user-friendliness, navigation and interaction.
- Ideation: Development of new improvement ideas and visualization in the form of wireframes.
- Recommendations: Concrete suggestions for improvement to optimize the user experience.
An expert review is a quick and cost-effective method for uncovering UX problems at an early stage before extensive user tests are carried out.
Results & Impact
Thanks to the design sprint and the expert review, the BLUE BOX™ team was able to achieve significant improvements:
- Intuitive user guidance: The application has been structured more clearly and makes it easier for users to access important functions.
- Optimized navigation: A logical and consistent menu structure improves usability.
- Increased efficiency: The optimized UI enables faster configurations of pump installations.
- Higher user satisfaction: The application was made more practical through targeted testing and the integration of the user perspective.
Conclusion
The structured approach with a design sprint for concept development and an expert review for fine-tuning has proven its worth. Sulzer was not only able to optimize the BLUE BOX™ application with this methodology, but also build up internal UX expertise. The combination of collaborative innovation, rapid prototyping and data-based testing shows how UX optimization can be implemented efficiently and purposefully.
"Working with Raskin Apps was a real game changer for our IoT solution. Cathrin and Michael really went the extra mile to understand our needs and delivered a user experience that exceeded our expectations. We received an intuitive design and workflow that has greatly improved our customer satisfaction and retention and will allow us to drive future development in a natural way. We recommend Raskin Apps to anyone looking to improve their user experience."
Markus Denk, Digital Innovation Project Manager at Sulzer