Allegion / Overtur

See the result as you build it.

Overtur is where teams work out door security and openings together.

My role
Senior Designer
In collaboration
Design + Development Team
Timeframe
September 2018 – September 2019

One decision: show the result while it’s being made.

Keep the project in view.

I redesigned navigation and the dashboard, connected notes and mentions, and replaced the report wizard with a live-preview editor.

Connected moments

  1. Projects
  2. Dashboard
  3. Navigate
  4. Discuss
  5. Report
  6. Preview

A closer look

The report builder: on the left the report itself, a hardware-set specification laid out as it will print; on the right the options, a choice of master specification template; page and zoom controls at the bottom.
The report builder
The project dashboard: project details and collaborators on the left, a note thread in the middle with a message being written that mentions a collaborator, and an activity timeline on the right of door-opening notes and team members added.
Notes and mentions
Three phone screens of the Overtur field app: the list of openings in a session, the floor plan with each opening pinned and numbered, and the punch report listing hardware found damaged or not delivered.
In the field

Popular, and hard to get around.

Overtur had become popular because nothing else in the industry did what it did. Success brought problems: no visual consistency, weak navigation, and illogical paths. Users felt trapped at times, clicking and searching far more than they should.

Heuristics, councils and power users.

I ran a heuristic analysis to find what users loved and what needed work, a competitive analysis, and interviews with user groups and user councils (real community councils in the Overtur ecosystem). The aim: simpler navigation, important information up front, clean but not cluttered.

  • Heuristic analysis of the existing application
  • Interviews with user councils and power users
  • Navigation redesigned for space and clarity
  • A dashboard showing project status at a glance
  • Notes and mentions for team collaboration
  • A report builder with live preview
  • Moved onto Project Phoenix components as the system took shape
Importing a door schedule: a four-step bar across the top, and a table of openings with door number, size, family and type, materials, fire rating and hardware columns, each column mapped to a field.
Importing a door schedule: map the columns once, review every opening, then submit. Design comp, 2019; placeholder data.
The report builder with its content panel open: include all openings, or select specific ones, while the report stays in view on the left.
Choosing what the report covers, with the report still in view. Design comp, 2019.
The first step of the import: the door schedule as it arrived, in feet and inches with blanks, before the values are mapped and normalized.
The first step: the schedule as it came in, feet and inches and blanks and all. Two steps later it reads as one clean list. Design comp, 2019.
Three phone screens of the field app: the list of sessions on a project, a session pushed with a success alert, and the plan view’s filters.
The field app: sessions, a push confirmed, and the plan’s filters. Design comps, 2019.
My Projects: a table of projects with status, architect, project owner and building owner, tabs for recent, all and completed, search and a new project button.
The projects a user belongs to, is invited to and has completed, in one table. Design comp, 2019; the projects and names are invented.
Create New Project: a stepped dialog over the projects table, with project information, geographic information, and hardware and standards fields.
Creating a project in three steps, with the standards chosen up front. Design comp, 2019; invented data.

From a wizard to a live preview.

What expert users said.

The product was reshaped with its daily users at the table, and the report builder, from a wizard to a live editor, is the change they felt most. What follows is what shipped and what they told us.

What shipped
Streamlined navigation that frees the screen for the work; a dashboard of the projects you belong to, were invited to and have completed; notes and mentions for the team; and a report builder that went from a multi-step wizard to an editor with a live preview.
What was observed
The redesign was tested daily with expert users and user councils. Some users resisted the change at first; the overwhelming response was excitement, and users said their daily work became more efficient.
What this case doesn’t claim
Figures. The original case study described the direction of change without a published baseline or method, so it is given here as what people reported, not as a measurement.

Patterns that outlasted the refresh.

The patterns set during this refresh became templates for new features, so the platform could stay consistent as it grew.

Ask about Overtur

What made Overtur hard to use?What changed in the report builder?How did users react?