1. The document describes the redesign of the SpringerMaterials database led by the author as the lead UX designer. 2. As part of a globally distributed team, the author evolved the digital product using an Agile/Lean UX methodology which emphasized continuous collaboration across locations. 3. Extensive user research, testing, and analysis was conducted to inform the redesign of merging seven databases into a single product to meet various user needs.

1. Clive G Hughes | Case study
Springer Nature
Digital product: Springer Materials
Springer Nature is a world-class international
scientific publisher, with more than 2,900
journals and 200,000 books.
SpringerMaterials is now the world’s largest and
most comprehensive research platform
dedicated to information on substances, their
properties, and uses.
Collaboration session with other UX & UI designers

2. I was hired in May 2014 as lead UX designer and
tasked with redesigning the legacy
SpringerMaterials database.
As part of a globally distributed team I evolved the
digital product practicing a goal driven, continuous,
collaborative, Agile / Lean UX methodology.
Seven databases in total were to be merged into the
product, each database had different use-cases and
data complexities. Content grew to include journal
articles, interactive diagrams, charts and tabular
data. This required both extensive user research for
upcoming databases, testing of features just built,
while communicating just-in-time UX to the
developers within a weekly cadence.
Task
UI design for inorganic solid phase diagrams

3. Design for phase diagram data sheets

4. Interactive phase diagrams mobile experience

5. 1. Globally distributed cross-functional team
The team was spread across three locations
Heidelberg, Germany
Various stakeholders, a product owner and two subject
matter experts (SMEs)
Pune, India
Project manager, business analyst, five developer pairs, a
front-end developer and two QAs
London, UK
Lead UX designer (me), other UXers and UI designers
Action
A participant writing a user goal during a goal workshop

6. 2. Communication
Agile emphasise communication over
documentation, regular communication was
imperative within a globally distributed
team. Each morning was dedicated to
remote collaboration.
Daily morning analysis call
• Core team members (PO, Lead UX, BA,
Lead dev, SMEs)
• To discuss work in current development
• To analyse design solutions ready
for development
• Flag problems
Weekly UI design call
• Facilitated by me
• Held between UX, UI designers, front-end
developers and lead developers
• Collaborate on early UX solutions and visual
design elements
Weekly UX round-table
• Facilitated by me
• Collaborative sessions to present and drive
UX design
• To get early buy-in from stakeholders
• Gather cross-functional feedback
Weekly dev/data call
• Similar to the UX round table but with a
strong technical focus on the structure of data
Bi-weekly showcases & retrospective
• Presentation of product status to the stakeholders
and wider business
• I presented UX status
• A retro was held after each showcase to learn and
improve our process

7. Experience map
Used in the showcase presentations with stakeholders to track
improvements to key touch points in the user journey

8. Data visualisation - extract from a stakeholder presentation
Highlighting a critical problem with Substance Profile pages, part of the
acquisition funnel work

9. 3. User testing & research
I implemented, planned, recruited for and facilitated
various testing and research methods.
• Moderated testing (face-to-face/remote)
• Unmoderated remote testing
• Taxonomy (remote unmoderated open
card sorting)
• User interviews (face-to-face/remote)
• Competitor benchmarking
• Google & Webtrekk analytics
• Customer service tickets
• Surveys
• Innovation lab
User interview for
Inorganic Solid Phases database

10. 4. Analysis
During and after research or testing intense
analysis was inevitable. To increase efficiency I
experimented with various techniques to help
visualise and spot themes, trends or keep
track of goals.
• Fire-wall analysis for user testing
• Story maps for goal tracking
• UX debt wall - tracking using printouts
of the UI
• Experience map and data visualisations
to keep track of findings
• Assets reused in stakeholder presentations
Fire-wall user testing analysis

11. 5. Inceptions & collocation
The entire team would collocate for a week or two
every quarter. The outcome of these was a shared vision
of the product for the next three months. Priority of
goals and planning as well as an accelerated design
process was achieved.
• Present business opportunities
• Present UX research and testing
• Persona and empathy mapping workshop
• User goal workshop
• User journey/story mapping workshop
• Experience mapping workshop
• Slider workshop
• Planning workshop
User goals workshop during Nano inception

12. Empathy mapping workshop

13. User goal workshop

14. Example user journey presented to give participants context

15. User journey workshop during Nano inception

16. Story-map workshop - Nano objects database

17. 6. Goal driven (hypothesis) approach
• Goals prioritised during UX collocation
• Dependencies are planned for
• Balance quality/delivery: UX design
problems, data delivery, technical
bugs/debt and UX debt
• ‘Just-in-time’ design provided prior
to development
• Pivot on design & re-prioritise goals if
needed based on current research 7. Collaboration
• Cross-functional collaboration throughout
within the product team
• Wider collaboration with other product teams
• Learning is cross-pollinated to other teams
• Consistent evolution of user experience
across all products is achieved

18. Context search - Sketch used to communicate thinking to the
cross-functional team. To get ‘relevent’ results quickly we needed to
descover the user’s context as soon as possible.

19. Context search - search knows the user is searching for the substance ‘Benzene’

20. Taxonomy problem with material property names
Solution allows users to use the language they know to find the data they need. The user
is no longer forced into learning a new naming convention.
1, 2,
3, 4,

21. Design for MSI reports

22. Design for MSI phase diagram data sheets

23. The beta product released and enjoyed positive acclaim at the annual
2014 Frankfurt October book fair. Our approach had been heavily
focused on feature delivery and known problems were magnified.
With a new MSI database being acquired in November I took the
opportunity to strongly influenced the team and stakeholders to
evolve the process. Redefining the focus to business and user goals.
SpringerMaterials is now an exemplary product of Springer with
other product teams borrowing UX concepts and design patterns.
Learning and outcome