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UX Design June 3, 2023

Building Digital Twins 3X Faster: Streamlining the Design Process at Kloudspot

The Challenge

Kloudspot, an award-winning digital transformation company, faced significant challenge: An unsustainable four-month turnaround for setting up digital twins, hindering our small team’s ability to meet client demands efficiently. Our mission was to streamline the process and develop a scalable design system to create and deploy digital twins faster. By optimizing workflows and fostering cross-functional collaboration, we aimed to significantly reduce production time while maintaining high-quality outputs.

  • Discipline

    Design direction, UX design, UI design

  • Team Size

    6 members

  • Timeframe

    8 weeks

My Role

As a principal product designer, I led a team of 3 UX/UI designers and 2 3D designers to create a design process, design system and a custom UI kit tailored for interacting with digital twins.

Through collaborative efforts, we identified the bottlenecks and inefficiencies leading to poor turnaround times and regressions for creating digital twins. I conceptualized and led the development of a design process and design system from the ground up.

Team Structure

  • 3 UX/UI designers / researchers (including me),
  • 2 3D Designers,
  • 1 3D Developer

Research Methods

Stakeholder interview, Team workshop, UX Strategy, Competitor Analysis, Process Improvement

Business Context

Understanding Digital Twins

Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical environments that help organizations monitor, analyze, and optimize their operations. They are particularly valuable in industries like manufacturing, healthcare, smart cities, and logistics, enabling businesses to:

  • Monitor and Optimize Operations: Track asset performance, predict maintenance needs, and optimize resource usage.
  • Enhance Decision-Making: Simulate scenarios to foresee the impact of changes, reducing risks and improving planning.
  • Improve Safety and Efficiency: Test safety protocols and operational changes virtually before real-world implementation.

Kloudspot recognized the potential of digital twins but struggled with the lengthy setup time, which limited our competitiveness and strained resources.

Objectives

1.

Reduce Turnaround Time

Reduce the digital twin creation process, from requirement gathering to delivery from 16 weeks to 6 weeks.

2.

Develop a Scalable Process

Create a streamlined workflow for upcoming projects, addressing team coordination to prevent miscommunication and delays.

3.

Build a Modular Design System

Establish standardized guidelines and reusable components to ensure consistency and efficiency.

4.

Ensure High-Quality Outputs

Ensure the expedited process does not compromise the quality of the digital twins.

Strategy & Approach

Understanding that the existing workflow was the primary obstacle, we focused on:

Audit Current Process

Mapped out each step from initial design concepts to deployment, involving all teams—visual designers, 3D designers, developers, and hardware engineers.

Identify Bottlenecks

Analyzed stages to pinpoint inefficiencies such as lengthy asset creation times and miscommunication during handoffs.

Optimize for Scalability

Developed a process to reduce time for the current project and make future projects faster and more efficient.

Develop a Design System

Established standardized guidelines and components to reduce duplication of effort and ensure consistency.

Research & Insights

To tackle Kloudspot’s challenges, we conducted thorough research to uncover the root causes of inefficiencies in our digital twin creation process. Our approach combined internal analysis with industry benchmarking to ensure a comprehensive understanding.

We initiated the process by mapping out the existing workflow in detail. This involved charting every step from the initial concept to final deployment, highlighting how different teams—visual designers, 3D designers, developers, and hardware engineers—interacted. This visual representation helped us identify critical points where delays and misunderstandings frequently occurred.

Key Findings

First thing I did was conduct team interviews and workshops to identify insights firsthand. Team members shared their experiences, frustrations, and suggestions for improvement.

A recurring theme was the lack of standardized tools and guidelines, which led to inconsistent outputs and duplicated efforts.Our workflow analysis further highlighted patterns of inefficiency.

Data from past projects revealed that without a design system or UI library, teams  worked in silos, recreating similar assets and interfaces from scratch. This wasted time and resulted in inconsistencies across the projects.

From our research, several key findings emerged:

1.

Absence of a Design System and UI Library

The lack of a design system meant that designers and devs did not have a common set of guidelines or reusable components. This led to significant time wasted on creating assets from scratch for each project, causing delays and inconsistencies.

2.

Inefficient Asset Creation

Redundant efforts were identified where designers independently created similar 3D assets or UI elements. This duplication was a direct consequence of not having a shared asset library, consuming valuable time and resources.

3.

Communication Gaps

Without any process, misunderstandings between teams were common. Important details were often lost during handoffs, necessitating additional meetings and revisions. This further extended project timelines.

4.

Inconsistent Processes

The absence of standardized procedures meant each team followed their own methodologies. This lack of cohesion led to confusion, misaligned expectations, and inefficiencies throughout the project lifecycle.

These insights underscored the urgent need for a cohesive strategy that addressed both the structural inefficiencies and the collaborative shortcomings within our workflow.

Design Process

1.

Redesigning the Process Flow

Our first priority was identifying bottlenecks: points where delays and miscommunication commonly occurred. We found inefficiencies in areas such as asset creation and team handoffs, which caused unnecessary delays. With this insight, I was able to refine the process, ensuring it could handle current project demands while being scalable for future digital twin projects.

The core of our solution was developing a modular design system and establishing a comprehensive UI library. By creating a centralized repository of design guidelines and reusable components, I was able to impact all team members to work more efficiently.

2.

Design System Creation

We compiled a set of standardized guidelines covering the basics like typography, color schemes, interaction patterns and analytics components. This ensured that all our products had a consistent look and feel, regardless of who worked on them.

Step 3.

UI Library Development

We designed a collection of reusable UI components. This included the fundamental elements like buttons, menus, navigation, cards and data visualization elements. The library enabled designers and developers to rapidly assemble interfaces without starting from scratch each time.

4.

Prototyping & User Testing

We built prototypes using the new design system and UI components to test their effectiveness in real-world scenarios. This allowed us to identify any gaps or issues early on.

5.

Iterations

Our design process was iterative and collaborative:

Design System & UI Library Governance
After a few iterations, we set up a strict governance policy for modifying the design system and UI library

Regular Feedback Loops: Scheduled meetings and used collaborative platforms to continually refine the design system and UI to address challenges.

Step 5.

Team Workshops

By involving team members in testing and conducting workshops we gathered valuable feedback that progressive improvements to the Design system and the UX of our products.

Step 6.

Integration with 3D Assets and IoT Devices

We collaborated closely with 3D designers and hardware engineers to implement:

3D Asset Standardization: Established protocols for creating and cataloging 3D assets, ensuring they were compatible with our design system and easily accessible for future projects.

Early IoT Integration: Incorporated critical sensors and devices into the design process from the outset, preventing costly revisions and ensuring functional accuracy.

Outcomes & Impact

0 X

Faster Development Time

We successfully reduced the creation time of digital twins from over 16 weeks to just 6 weeks, achieving our primary objective.

0 %

Business Growth

The increased efficiency and quality enabled us to take on more projects and contributing to a 2x+ increase in new projects signed.

Apart from our primary objectives, our success was impacted all teams and domains.

Enhanced Efficiency: The reusable components and standardized guidelines streamlined the workflow, reducing redundant efforts and speeding up the design and development phases.

Improved Quality and Consistency: The design system ensured that all digital twins adhered to the same high standards, enhancing the overall quality and user experience.

Strengthened Collaboration: Clear communication channels and shared tools fostered better teamwork across disciplines.

Dubai RTA Station Analytics Portal — Digital Twin

Arun Jaitley Stadium Analytics Portal

Digital Twin For RTA Station

Digital Twin For RTA Station

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