– part 1 with Erik Lövquist, Head of Design
We settle in with a few carefully chosen teas, some shortbread, and an insatiable appetite for draining every last drop of wisdom from our Head of Design, Erik Lövquist. The goal: to explore how Quiddly work with user experience and design, and how both will evolve. This is the first part out of three in our design and UX session with Erik.
But before we dive into the wonderful world of UX and design, we have to ask: what’s the best thing about working at Quiddly?
Besides the great mix of talented and interesting people, I’d say it’s the variety of end users and services in a complex domain that makes for really interesting design challenges. On top of that, we’re fortunate to have close collaboration with curious customers who value creativity and problem-solving. Overall, it’s an awesome and inspiring place to be.
What to expect from this article series?
We want to dive into design philosophies, principles, and how they’re implemented in Quiddly’s user interfaces. How does one navigate a complex ecosystem of three interconnected systems, each serving several distinct user types? How do you translate client and sales requirements into interfaces and then hand them over to programmers in the most effective way?
And of course, no modern design interview is complete without that somewhat overused two-letter acronym. What role does AI play? Will it lead to uniform interfaces and stifle innovation? Or are we missing the bigger picture and about to see UX take an entirely different direction? These are just a few of the questions explored in this three-part interview series.
From VR and AR to PhD and beyond
Erik has always been fascinated by how new technologies shape everyday life – from video game design to virtual reality. As an undergraduate, he studied engineering and media technology, which eventually led him to work with designing VR and AR training solutions for medical doctors. That work became the foundation for his PhD in Computer Science and applied UX design.
Great design enables people to support their everyday tasks (user needs) in an optimal way (user gain), while at the same time look and feel nice to use (user delight), all while balancing the expectations of the service providers (business goals).
Eriks academic path set the trajectory for his career. From UX researcher for a novel Business Intelligence system, to Design Leader, and now Head of Design at Quiddly, a role he has held for the past three years.
The complexity of multi-layered UX
At Quiddly we design for multiple audiences: our direct customers, their clients, and in turn, their debtors. That’s complex enough. Add to this both B2B and B2C perspectives, plus different user roles – from handlers to managers – and the challenge grows. So how does Erik and his team approach the task of designing user experiences for such different groups?
At Quiddly, we like to keep it simple yet elegant. We make sure to speak directly with our customers and users, understanding the differences in needs and gains across audiences. We continuously collaborate with our customers to uncover not only their own needs, but also those of their clients and end customers. There’s nothing more valuable than talking to and observing the actual user to truly understand how they use a system and what they care about.
And if the above complexity wasn’t enough, Quiddly also operates in three business areas: factoring, invoicing, and debt collection. Sometimes a client operates in one of them, sometimes two, and sometimes all three.
As much as possible, we re-use patterns across our different domains. This provides value for our customers, as the user experience remains consistent regardless of which domain they’re working in. It’s also highly beneficial for productivity, as our developers can re-use existing components and views when implementing a new feature.
Erik explains that Quiddly relies on a design system that they crafted. It defines general UX patterns. This ensures coherence and balance between a unified brand experience and tailoring solutions for specific user groups. The system creates the guardrails that prevent the user experience from breaking apart.
Occasionally we design something domain-specific. For instance, we introduced a decision board that only exists in the factoring module. But even then, we considered how it might be adapted for other domains or contexts.
Continue reading in Part Two
In the second part of our three-part series, we dive into Quiddly’s Design & Development process and explore our guiding Design Principles and UX Philosophy.