Ecosystem exploration
Before touching the interface, we mapped the service landscape. The questions were straightforward: who are the actors, what systems touch this service, and what changes in one phase create ripples elsewhere?
- Identified new actors, users, and systems for the upcoming phase
- Mapped dependencies from other projects that rely on this service
- Investigated impacts on external and internal users requiring additional support
- Understood where risk and analysis functions might need changes
- Explored integration points with other services to improve the user journey
Why this comes first
The temptation is to start with wireframes. The better approach is to understand the system before you design any part of it. A screen in isolation is a guess. A screen informed by the full landscape, who depends on what, where the handoffs happen, what breaks when one piece changes, is a design decision with context.