Julota
Web applications connecting local service providers to enhance care for the most vulnerable community members
Customer
Julota
Location
Colorado Springs, USA
Project Time
2018-2019
Industry
Social & Healthcare
What
Web Applications (SaaS)
Who
Cross-functional team of 4 people
Tools
Sketch, Zeplin, Axure, Jira
Founded in 2014, Julota (which stands for "Just Love On Them Always") aims to build a virtual safety net for vulnerable individuals within communities. It seeks to facilitate seamless coordination among diverse organizations—including healthcare providers, law enforcement, and social services—by addressing key challenges such as security, privacy, consent management, and varying policies. This enables organizations to efficiently identify those in need, assemble specialized care teams, and resolve issues without the hassle of excessive paperwork or time-consuming communications.
Problem Statement
Julota, through its single application Julota Reach, provided various community organizations with the tool to create and manage in-depth profiles for vulnerable individuals, aiming to track and address all aspects of their care and diverse needs. However, Julota fell short in enabling effective, cross-organizational collaboration to collectively address the varied needs of community members, including transportation, psychological support, medical bill payments, and legal consultations.
Furthermore, 1/3 of Julota Reach users reported dissatisfaction with the platform, specifically citing its clunky and unclear interface as well as difficulties in navigation due to its illogical structure. As a result, users found it challenging to complete tasks efficiently, leading to frustration, decreased productivity, and increased business costs.
Business Goals
📌By building a second application, Julota Community, the platform can become a centralized hub that seamlessly connects various community organizations to synchronize their efforts. This would ensure that vulnerable community members receive the right service, with the right resources, at the right time.
📌To elevate user satisfaction and operational efficiency by redesigning the user interface of Julota Reach with a focus on enhancing user-friendliness, intuitive navigation, and logical information architecture.
My Role
At first, I was responsible for developing the UI for the new Julota Community application. However, as the project advanced, my role expanded to include the redesign of the existing Julota Reach application. My ultimate goal was to create responsive UI designs for both applications, ensuring a seamless experience across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Results
Julota Community was successfully released and integrated into the Julota platform, receiving positive feedback from users.
🏆The redesign of Julota Reach was also well-received by its users, who commended the app's enhanced usability across multiple platforms. Users found it notably easier to interact with the app, whether they were inputting data on laptops or updating details via tablets or mobile phones. Overall, the customersatisfaction score for Julota Reach increased from 64% to 88% following the redesign.
🏆I created a comprehensive UI style guide that enabled developers to effortlessly reuse components and build new pages when needed. This streamlined the development process and ensured consistent UI design across the project.
Design Process
Step 1
📍User Stories, Scenarios & Flows
📍Paper Sketches + Wireframes
📍Interactive Digital Prototype
Step 2
Step 3
📍Preparing Design Assets for Development
📍Creating the UI Kit
📍Providing Feedback
STEP 1
Analyzing Data, Sketching & Prototyping
📍User Stories, Scenarios & Flows
📍Paper Sketches + Wireframes
📍Interactive Digital Prototype
By utilizing the UX research and statistics provided by the customer's in-house specialist, I gained a better understanding of the business, users, and contexts of use, which informed my design process for the Julota Community application. Given the complexity of the application's various widgets, panels, wizards, tables, and modals, I began with low-fidelity paper sketches to map out the layout and positioning of each component. I then created an interactive prototype in Axure, incorporating these elements, their interactions, and user flows. Following successful testing and approval by the customer, I proceeded with finalizing the UI design.
STEP 2
Visual Design
📍Julota Community Visual Design
📍Julota Reach Visual Design
Julota Community Design
As Julota already had an established set of implemented UI components, my task was to work within those parameters while creating new designs. I also needed to stick to the existing brand colors so that the new application would be visually associated with Julota. I explored different combinations of the brand colors and experimented with fonts and layouts to come up with a new but consistent visual design of the new app.
I created detailed UI designs for each screen and prepared a comprehensive style guide that included all the components used in my designs to streamline the development process.
Throughout the project, I maintained regular communication with the customer to ensure that we were aligned on design options and to generate new ideas and solutions. Our collaborative approach allowed us to build a final product that met their needs and aligned with their brand identity.
Forms & Tables
Julota Reach Design
As the application had already been used by numerous organizations, the customer requested that I refrain from making any drastic changes to the layouts. With this in mind, I approached the interface with great care, aiming to maintain familiarity for existing users while improving the overall user experience and user interface.
Despite this limitation, the customer was enthusiastic about my suggestions for enhancing the application's UX and UI. By restructuring the information into logical groupings, trimming away any excess elements and polishing the UI, we've managed to create a more cohesive interface, resulting in an improved product that better met user needs and received much more positive user feedback.
Forms & Tables
Authentication Pages
Error & Empty Pages
STEP 3
Handoff & Design Review
📍Preparing Design Assets for Development
📍Creating the UI Kit
📍Providing Feedback
I actively collaborated with the development team on a daily basis, providing guidance on UI-related matters and thoroughly reviewing the design implementations. To ensure a smooth and efficient process, I established a comprehensive styleguide, including tables, forms, modals, and more, and created detailed designs for each. This enabled the developers to easily reuse these predefined styles and components across various pages, enhancing consistency and coherence in the overall UI design.
