Information Design

Business Challenge

The Flic Scanner business was not performing as expected even though thousands of scanners had been sold. Many scanners were sold through the company’s e-commerce storefront. Little was know about these purchases beyond the customer name and shipping address. We needed to embark on a fact-finding mission if we were going to grow the business.

We wanted to know:

• How were customers using the products?
• Which software application(s) they were scanning bar codes into?
• Which devices and operating systems were being used?
• Were there opportunities to bundle products?
• Were there opportunities to find new resellers?
• How was the software development kit for developers performing?

Updated Collateral Needed

One of the goals in designing new collateral was to improve communications with future customers. This would be important for upcoming tradeshows within the Microsoft mobile community and the RIM BlackBerry ecosystem.

Results

Designing a new brochure demystified product usage for future customers and resellers. The brochure revealed a collection of software across a range of applications. An online solutions guide was created to showcase more even more detail about each application. Having the Flic Connectivity Platform enabled more productive conversations with developers and resellers in the Microsoft and RIM BlackBerry ecosystems.  The brochure architecture became a foundational piece for new collateral as the product continued to innovate. The ROV MEMS-based scanner used the same basic format. Solutions collateral also mirrored the information design that resulted from this project.

What We Did

We embarked on a fact-finding mission. One source of learning was a loyalty campaign where we reached out to customers to ask many questions. See What’s Your Story. Other sources of information included call center reports, technical requests made to the applications engineer, and interviews with channel managers and resellers.  Independent Software Vendors and Resellers who offered integration services were especially helpful to inform the product roadmap.

Flic Connectivity Platform

From this information, a connectivity diagram was beginning to take shape. Having a visual communication tool helped us to have better conversations with various stakeholders. The final version is what appears on the inside middle panel of the tri-fold six-panel brochure. This Flic Platform Diagram became a key communication point when speaking with customers, developers, resellers, and integrations partners. It was also helpful in getting engineering, sales, marketing, and services to use a common language when describing “software.”

Simplifying Complexity