Factory AI

‍Problem Space

Manufacturers pay "downtime" costs when a machine breaks down.

The current dashboards that predict machine failure are confusing

Design Solution

A simplistic dashboard by Factory AI that shortens downtime costs by predicting machine failure.

Roles

User Research

User Interviews

User Testing

Mid-Fi/Hi-Fi Prototyping

UI Designer

Tools

AWS Amplify

Heroicons

Figma

Microsoft Teams

Notion

React

Slack

Tailwind CSS

Tremor

Duration

31/05/23 - 29/10/23

The cost of down-time is $260,000 per hour in the manufacturing industry

Factory is a start-up that aims to address this problem, and I was their first UX/UI designer!

User Research

The first roadblock was defining the correct users of the website, as the website users may not be the users of the product.

I learned that user personas and marketing personas are two different areas.

Ultimately, the objective was to design something of value for both reliability engineers and maintenance coordinators; the user personas.

Shifting my perspective in this manner led me to pivot my efforts.

Arnott's Site Visit

I raised my hand to attend one of the users at Arnott’s, since Factory AI has a pilot study alongside the dashboard.

It was exciting to see the dashboard they used on a monitor, and learned it wasn’t enough for them to capture fault details.

Lo/Mid-Fi Prototype

I sketched some rough layouts for the founders - noting best accessibility practices.

User Interviews and Testing

Working backwards, I interviewed and tested with 4 different user personas.

I learned three things:

1. Simplicity is key - operators should be able to use it.

2. A traffic light system would be appropriate as it’s used on-site 🔴🟠🟢.

3. Other factors provided some benchmarks for what is good, but also what can be improved.

I transitioned my role from developing a mid-fi prototype to focusing on testing and validating the MVP front-end gave feedback on usability.

This was my first touchpoint with a front-end developer, and to ensure feedback was attainable, I used the Figma UI kits of the different React library components he is utilising.

What I Learned

1. Becoming aligned with company and product vision is pivotal.

Through meetings with the founders we each brought on our own perspective.

2. The start-up culture.

You're consistently navigating through uncertainties, and embracing discomfort became the new normal in a start-up.

This alleviates some pressure on providing the best product forward, and places more importance on continuous iterations of the design.

3. How to better explain my design concepts. The founders were always receptive on how I advocated for the user, and there were times where I assumed we had the same interpretation of a design approach when they were different!

I started listing terminology and a digital trail of what I explained so we were all on the same page.

Factory AI

Macquarie Uni

Growth Team