Scott finlayson

Leveraging the existing data grid structure, I wanted to try to utilize the existing Status indicator circles to morph into a Gantt-like display of the tasks within the work order.

Part of the idea was to never have the status icon scroll out of view, but rather "magnetically" snap to the edges of either side of the timeline for tasks that were outside of the viewable area.

I felt it was crucial for the status circles/tasks to never sroll out of view horizontally, so I imagined areas to the far left and right of the timeline that act as a gutter. Past events (left) or future events (right) "magnetically" cling to the edges instead of scrolling out of view. The user never loses sight of the task's status horizontally.

For legal reasons, I am not permitted to show actual screenshots of the feature(s) implemented in the Ericsson Adaptive Inventory interface. The actual implementation was not as fluid as these animations depict due to the limitations of the framework, but were as close as possible where technology allowed.

One challenge with a product that has so many users globally, and that utilize the Adaptive Inventory suite of tools in such vastly different ways, is that the baked-in flexibility of the product can yield so many unexpected results depending on how the customers use the features.

In addition, my solution had to be able to handle Good data, Bad data, and even the lack of data without breaking the User Interface. It also needed to function within expectations when displaying existing legacy data of our user base.

The manner in which my task bar solutions were layered and drawn to screen, it would easily map whatever data entries were in the database, but also have fall-back rules for when no data was present. We also had to allow for illogical data entries, such as entering a task duration (estimation of time needed to complete the tast) of 4 days, while allowing them to schedule a date range for execution that only lasted 2 days.

The layers can handle it.

I meticulously authored the drawing rules that dictated how the task layers were drawn to the screen based on the data entered, or even lack of data.

Tasks that have not begun as "Today" approaches will appear to be collected along the vertical Today line, and move along with it from day to day until the task has begun or changed status.

With each passing day, tasks may go into a red warning state if the task approaches or exceeds a scheduled window, but not all tasks have this data entered into the work order. Some may just collect along the Today line without showing an error because they have no specific completion dates other than the end of the entire work order.

This was the first project I was involved with after joining the Ericsson UX Team in spring of 2016. this document is an early iteration of my thoughts on how the data would drive the visuals.