Trane

SaaS for HVAC Systems

Products

Trane Connect is an accompanying software that monitors the equipment costs and tracking opportunities for repair.

Ensemble focuses on equipment monitoring to allow users to troubleshoot faulty equipment and potentially identify a solution.

Problem

The existing architecture was feature based and put together by different development teams. This created disjointed experiences between products that sometimes solved the same problems twice but in different ways. Trane needed to create a more seamless experience between its software and introduce users to a catered experience for their individual needs as well as a similar look and feel.

Scenarios

Trane users individual interests vary wildly with inconsistent overlap. By analyzing personas and feedback from subject matter experts, we documented the most common use cases within Trane Connect, Ensemble and Synchrony in a series of storyboarding sessions.

me

ED

Facility Director of medium size manufacturing facility

Goals
  • Cost savings
  • Operations planning
  • Feeling at ease
Affinity Diagram

Affinity Diagrams

Categorizing our users needs

The user scenarios guided similar interests into three primary groupings: Building Monitoring, Cost Monitoring and Management. These groupings would guide Trane Software architecture going forward. This was not only more efficient but also presented exciting new marketing strategies.

A Facility Director, cares more about costs but has limited technical knowledge of the equipment. A Remote Support Specialist can diagnose issues remotely and provide support for the service techs. Some users care about 500 different buildings all from the same organization, but others may only care about one small quadruplex.

Affinity Diagram

Updating the Nav

Concepting

The research we gathered directly informed early prototypes for a more scalable navigation. The hierarchy needed to accommodate users with entirely different portfolios. Some users care about the inner workings of one building, some want to see a high level of 100 buildings. Building navigation would become more prominent but would still allow switching to different products. We began to design a building, equipment and portfolio centric views. A new navigation would also serve as a conduit for a new design system.

Navigation brainstorming Navigation brainstorming Navigation brainstorming Navigation brainstorming

Component Library

I was brought on to Trane as a Product Designer and a Pattern Librarian. I helped facilitate switching the UX team over to Sketch and Abstract so I could begin creating the components within sketch. Simultaneously I started a dialogue with some lead developers to carry the components over to Storybook. This would allow for a system that was easily disseminated, consistent and accurate.

software
Trane Design System
Navigation brainstorming Navigation brainstorming

Design Systems

Usability and Accessibility

Problem

Trane Software had multiple inconsistencies within individual components and did not pass the accessibility standards outlined by WCAG.

Accessibility was a big focus when building a new design system. Color Contrast and text sizes were both points of contention because none of the established background colors passed color contrast standards and the vast majority of text within the software was below the recommended minimum.

The New Design system was built with these standards in mind as well as bringing in a flexible system that would establish basic web standards inspired by systems like IBM's Carbon design system.

"When Michael came onboard he took it upon himself to turn our style guide into a much more effective design system. He advocated for and helped implement tools to help us be more collaborative, more organized, and more secure. And then beyond that, Micheal took the time to teach the team about the various tools and served as a resource for questions as they arose. I learned a lot from Michael during our time together and I hope we have an opportunity to work together again in the future."

Jason K.

User Experience Director

Process

Preferred

Jamf

Jamf Nation

Jamf

E-commerce

Trane

Trane Connect

Trane

E-Commerce

Best Buy

Global Navigation

U.S. Bank

Design Systems

Hobbies

Illustrations

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