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Nomad is a web translation of a product that has been around since 1985.

It’s a part of Domino Server, which consists of a low code application designer and a client to run those applications, plus airtight security.

Up until late 2019, the only available client was called Notes, a downloaded software that released an annual update. Nomad, named for its new capacity to wander, translates Notes into a web browser and native mobile app.

Lotus Notes 4.0 from 1996

Product Position

There are a huge variety of business sectors that use Notes Domino: government, food science, cruise ships, oil rigs, manufacturing plants, farmers, environmental monitoring agencies. The list goes on.

They have custom applications that are business critical and may date back to the 1990s. Whoever wrote them is probably long gone, and re-implementing these apps on another platform is costly and difficult.

This makes the product extremely “sticky.” The IT department wants it gone, the business wants it gone, the end users want it gone. But it’s too expensive to quit it and replace it with something newer.

User Information

Due to the security component of Domino, all data is stored on prem, so we have no way to gather customer or end user usage data. Most companies sign a license agreement with HCL to use Domino products, but have a 3rd company - what HCL refers to as a business partner - administer the usage of the client. These admin are experts on all things Domino, but do not use applications in the same day to day capacity as the end user. I was unable to access any end users for official interviews or testing, instead having to rely on the input of business partners. Wildly enough though, I’ve met a few end users socially outside of work, and have tried to incorporate these unofficial insights in the work.

Age:

Working age, 22-65

Mobile expertise:

Second nature to daily struggle

Business Use:

Any

Example Use Case

The Chicken Farm

Imagine a company like Tyson. There are an ungodly amount of chickens being raised from egg to eating age. Like any product, they are inventory and need to be tracked and managed throughout their lifecycle. There is a central office where employees monitor this data, and a number of chicken living facilities dispersed throughout multiple rural areas. To gather data on these chickens, someone needs to go visit these remote chicken coops. A mobile device is the natural choice for quickly recording information whilst standing among 5k chickens.

Problem Identification

Since I was not able to speak to end users during the initial research phase for this project, I came to the following conclusions through conducting a heuristic analysis of the current app navigation.

Navigation structure was not optimized for mobile devices, resulting in a disjointed and frustrating experience.

Users struggled to seamlessly access and manage crucial database records on the go.
The absence of mobile-specific design patterns and features made it difficult for users to navigate applications and perform tasks they were accustomed to on the desktop version.

Home page only shows recent apps. After 12 apps are open, user must reopen from server.

"Workspace" organizational feature not available on mobile.

No actions available on applications.

Due to space constraints, tabs quickly become unusable.

Tabs from different applications are mixed together, making it hard to find what you're looking for.

Lots of icons without clear meaning

Disjointed search experience

Text edit menu made it hard to access most formatting options