ANGLO AMERICAN

A Human-Centred
Approach to Mining

— BRIEF

The initial engagement with Anglo American was a four-week discovery project to explore integrating Design Thinking practices into the development of two internal apps used by engineers to manage the mining processes and assets.

After completing the discovery phase, the client extended the team for more than one and a half years to design and deliver the two applications, growing from an initial group of three to 11 people.

— Impact

We used user-centric thinking and practices and an outcome-based approach to solving complex engineering challenges.

COMPANY
FJORD

YEAR / DURATION
2011-2012 / 19 months

ROLE
Design Lead

TYPE OF WORK
Client management (C-level), Service Design, IA, Data Visualisation, Visual and Interaction design

— RESEARCH

To uncover insights and understand very complex and different ways of working across geographies and personas, we had to use and experiment with various tools to gather requirements. 

— MAPPING COMPLEXITY

The The main challenge with Anglo American is translating extremely complex requirements into meaningful information that can inform the design solutions. 

To better understand the mining environment, we used many different design tools such as Domain Modeling, Service Blueprints, and real scenarios mapping.

We used all the collected information to create an IA and a high-level prototype shared with stakeholders to create alignment around the North Star Vision and the short-term objectives of the Apps.    

— INTERACTION AND VISUAL DESIGN

After mapping the content and defining the high-level structure of both apps, we started sketching and mocking up high-fidelity prototypes working with and improving the existing Anglo American Design System.

As part of our work, we collaborated with Data Scientists to create new and innovative data visualisations modules implemented across the two apps.

— DOCUMENTATION

At the end of the project, we delivered a set of User Stories and production-ready designs validated with the DEV team, the Design System team, the SMEs,
and the Stakeholders.