Blast Design on the Go

tl;dr

The Nobel Flame Mobile app redesign transformed field operations for blasting and drilling engineers by addressing usability challenges and refreshing the outdated UI.

Through iterative testing with a success rate of 88.5%, the redesign reduced user difficulty (average task difficulty rated 1.8/5) and lowered task completion time to an average of 6 minutes. Key features include permission-based navigation, a new drill log interface with multi-hole selection, and undo functionality to minimize errors.

Later, usability tests highlighted improved collaboration as all drillers can now work on shared designs in real-time. These updates significantly reduced manual workarounds, enhanced data accuracy, and improved productivity in on-site mining operations.

First Look at the Old Interface

The first thing I did to wrap my head around the project was to map out the current flow of the old tablet app in order to find gaps and obvious flaws that could be quickly fixed before diving deeply into analyzing the experience.

Then I reworked the flow to simplify it by getting rid of redundant paths and rethinking user actions that could be automated.

Instead of forcing the user to choose which part of the app to access upfront (drill log, Layout mode, hole log) I decided to have them choose these sections from a side navigation once they’re in the app. Additionally, I could make these sections show depending on user permissions to decrease cognitive load.

Dated Interface, unnecessary features...The dated interface with bad UX was pushing users away and forcing them to find workarounds. Often users would print out a pdf template and manually fill it out so they wouldn't have to interact with the app. This workaround was causing inconsistencies and communication issues.

Discovery Workshops

To begin understanding the issued with the current interface our product team conducted 2 workshops with our primary user groups: blasters and drillers. Below are the pain points we discovered:

Blast design files allow multiple user editing without clear indication of ownership over changes
Communication between drillers and blasters is challenging and both parties often end up waiting for the status update to proceed with their part of the work
No clear way to tell what deviations occurred between the designed and executed work
File naming is inconsistent and some users even leave this field blank
“Fat-fingering” is common and results in unreliable data
No clear way to visualize the bottom of the boreholes in order to load properly
Some frustrated users refuse to use the app and will instead sketch and take notes on a piece of paper

UsersI saw the two user groups as collaborators who were frustrated with each others’ work while both parties suffered because of the faulty interface they had to deal with.

Blasting EngineerDrills holes in the ground and reports back on field data.

Drilling EngineerDesgns and analyzes blast patterns.

Project Objectives

Accurate Documentation

Simplified Interactions

Clear Navigation

Improved collaboration

Brainstorming possible solutions

Once we had a good idea of our user's needs, I started brainstorming some ideas. I made some quick sketches to communicate how I imagined the redesigned interface would function. I wanted to get rid of the confusing navigation that caused users to edit wrong sections by creating a dashboard where all blast designs would live. The dashboard would be the starting point for all reports for both groups of users and the rest would be permission based.

Features to solve the pain points

1. Streamlined side navigation that follows user’s workflow.
2. Individual accounts and simplified log in flow.
3. Large UI elements with enough contrast to be viewed outdoors comfortably.
4. Undo functionality to help the user recover from errors.
5. Ability to automatically communicate blast design status between blasters and drillers with a collaborative software and automated updates.

Testing Initial Designs

Objectives

Observe how our users navigate through a blast diagram.
Discover visual and interaction issues with our current designs.
Discover potential navigation issues.
Get overall feedback on initial designs.

8

Initial usability tests

88.5%

Task success rate

1.8/5

Task difficulty (1 = extremely easy)

~6 min

Time to complete test

Ethnographic Studies

Once our MVP was released to a few customers I had the opportunity to visit several sites in Wisconsin for training and research. Below are some findings from my 4 day trip to customer sites.

Day 1: Madison, Wisconsin

Insight: Drillers use a pen and paper at this location, which makes interpreting handwriting and capturing data accurately very difficult.

Win: Was able to demo a conceptual design and get early feedback.

Day 2: Waukesha, Wisconsin

Insight: Having to fill out a long form for each hole drilled causes hesitation in users. They wish they could bulk enter data. Additionally, we’re missing an important input field to capture the total drill length.

Win: Hung out in a drilling truck and got a hands on demo of the face profiling process using a drone.

Day 3: Green Bay, Wisconsin

Insight: 3/3 users who were presented with an alternative design to their currently used MVP of our product preferred the alternative. The new design showed the pattern view and inputs side by side, which allowed the user to easily orientate themselves in space and navigate the canvas while filling out details for each hole.

Win: “Oh, I’m using this!” – One user’s first impression was so positive that they wanted to immediately start using the software for their current tasks.

Day 4: (back to) Waukesha, Wisconsin

Insight: Another user brought up a pain point mentioned previously – the need for a “good” tag for designs, rather than assuming if the design has no flaws then there will not be a tag. The sentiment was that if there is no tag the users may wonder if the design has no issues or if someone just forgot to add a tag to mark issues.

Win: A stakeholder made a comment about how the collaborative feature in our MVP app saves them time by eliminating the need for them to wait for email updates for each step of the process.

Impact

Thank you.