This project consisted of two parts, a desktop communication application and a redesign of an administration portal. The desktop app was a new entity that we based on IM but included phone and calendar functionality. The Admin Portal work consisted of reviewing multiple existing admin sites, understanding where they overlapped and designing a new portal that incorporated all the various functionality ofrom them.

The Ask

We were tasked to design a desktop telecommunications application. This application would be tied to the users landline phone and calendar. It would abe a combination of IM and Phone, so that the user could make calls or chat wuickly and easily with colleagues.

The Process

We created personas to understand user’s wants and needs. Using Omnigraffle, task flows were created to understand the various dependancies, understand how the system would work and close any loose ends.

The Outcome

This is the interesting part, because this application was to run on Microsoft machines, it was decided to develop the system using Silver Light, Microsoft answer to Adobe’s Flash. This turned out to be a mistake for a number of reasons, most importantly because the in-house developers did not understand how it worked.