Realizing and Building Business Cases in a World-Class Enterprise Solution
ORGANIZATION Infor Global Solutions
MY ROLE Lead Designer
TIMELINE June 2021-February 2022
Infor Operating Service (or Infor OS) is the core functionality that serves as a platform for several enterprise applications that have come together as a result of mergers and acquisitions. The last two years have seen a redesign effort to smooth the resulting lexicon, branding, and functionality differences and to allow the data from these applications to come together and provide customers a customizable view that reflects their business goals.
My return to Infor as a lead designer happened in time to continue the important conceptual work of another designer to reimagine how these applications can work together to contextualize information and make everyday business tasks more intuitive. As a member of the Infor Design team, I had the elements of the Infor Design System (or IDS) at my hands to help realize the practical interaction design of this new system.
Principles and Resources
Infor Design has a formidable toolbox to pull from when creating new interactions. As Infor OS is such an essential part of the platform, my work informed the design system as well.
Infor’s Product design principles to ground each aspect of the experience
Infor Design System in Figma
Interactive components built by developers based on Figma designs
Accessibility resources (WCAG 2.1, Color Contrast Checker, etc.)
Infor’s Design Principles
Narrative Flow
All of the team’s designs had to be underpinned by a strong taxonomy and narrative. We created the table below in FigJam as a reference for how each component fit into the platform.
In addition, I began designing each new user task began with a user flow. These flow charts were sent to development teams to supplement the Figma designs.
Flow chart for adding a widget to a library, showing user actions (purple) and system events (grey)
Functionality
Infor OS’s interface consisted of the following pieces to create a robust experience. We built out smaller user tasks within these main components:
A homing component to orient users in the Infor platform
A navigational component to allow free movement within the system
A dashboard component to provide flexibility of use
A contextual component to add nuance and auxiliary information
Ad-Hoc Designs
As development of these features took place, a strong collaborative spirit took hold between the designers and programmers. I responded to many requests that came in as a result of their knowledge and expertise, ensuring that the designs fulfilled their requirements while being in accordance to the design system.
Integration
While most of Infor’s application teams simply had to adopt the new Infor OS, a few applications required more in-depth designs to integrate well with the new system:
AI and conversational interface
Customer success portal
Inbox and notification center
Reflection
It’s no secret that enterprise software is often maligned for being clunky and non-intuitive, but this redesign is a step in the right direction to raise the standard of business-to-business solutions. It was challenging to marry such a robust and complex system with sleek, user-centered design. Infor OS remains a work in progress, but it was an honor to work among such dedicated designers, developers, project managers, and product owners to create an optimal product.