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The digital portal for a travel agent. The tablet app for a maintenance engineer. The digital system for an inspector. The app for a healthcare worker. The data platform for a fleet manager. Or the handheld for a delivery driver.
Many professionals rely on digital tools to do their jobs. Whether it’s in the field, on the road or in the office, digital products have become indispensable to them for completing their tasks and activities as efficiently and effectively as possible.
For our clients these tools are an essential part of a broader (IT) ecosystem, allowing their organisations to run as seamlessly and productively as possible. Key-processes and business critical tasks run through these digital tools while interconnecting with various other parts of the organisation’s IT system.
Often, these digital products are rather specialised. Both in terms of user interface (the ‘frontend’ of the digital product) and in terms of data and technology in- and output (the back-end of the system). The professional user base has specific, specialised jobs to be done which their digital tool should support them with.
Determining what a specific tool needs to look like, what it needs to be doing and how it should best be used is dependent on the business of our clients and the role of the professional users in that eco-system. It is not the same as designing and building for consumers.
Our extensive experience in crafting digital products for professional users across various industries, has helped us define seven key principles when creating digital tools for professional users. These key principles help to convey knowledge and learnings and support consistency across teams and stakeholders when designing digital products in specific industries or for specific target groups.
These seven key principles help our clients in realising a truly meaningful digital solution for professional users that empower them to work smarter, more efficiently and more effectively. They are:
Digital tools that support the workflow of professional users are often business critical. Any form of downtime or glitch can have far-reaching consequences. Delivering consistent performance in all situations that a professional user may encounter is of major importance. Reliability of tooling is key. This means that in the strategy- and design process, designing for edge cases is indispensable; users need to be confident that the system won’t fail them.
Imagine a maintenance engineer for fire safety, not coincidentally a use case we are very familiar with. They rely heavily on a digital tool for their day to day work. As part of their job they need to do fire safety inspections in high risk environments on –sometimes very remote– locations. If their app crashes mid-report or loses connectivity and does not store the data, precious time is wasted. In tricky environments, re-entering this data or having to wait for the tool to start working again, is putting the engineer at unnecessary risk and is making the process inefficient. Furthermore, it causes frustration and over time the trust in the tool itself is lost. This can have a negative impact on the adoption of the tool and in the end the value and result for the business.
These types of edge cases can be anticipated and designed for. In the case of the fire safety example, you can make sure there is an offline functionality available or there is a handle on unexpected spikes in usage. A way to find out the most common challenges and get insight in edge cases is by applying the proven method of ‘shadowing’. We follow engineers throughout their workday and observe their tasks in real time. This hands-on approach allows us to map out all the steps of their workflow in a journey, analyse pain points, and identify key opportunities to improve upon.
Embracing the key principles of ‘Reliability First’ results in trust by professional users. Making sure their digital tool works every time, whatever happens or wherever they are. A reliable product becomes a dependable partner in their work, enabling smooth operations.
Most professionals are subjected to constant decision making; time-pressure, complex options and combinations of considerations can make this a difficult thing to do. Great digital tools help them in making these decisions. And do so by providing clear context, by explaining why the system is recommending a certain action or surfacing specific data and help them by understanding the “why” behind the tool’s logic.
This helps the professional user trust the recommendations and outputs of the tool, and use it with confidence that their work is supported.
Let’s say a healthcare worker is using an app for patient monitoring. They receive an alert about a patient’s declining condition. Instead of a generic "Alert," the app explains: “Heart rate has increased 30% over the last 2 hours. This could indicate distress. Please check oxygen levels.”
When users understand the context of a situation and understand where the tool’s suggestions come from, they are more likely to feel in control. This reduces frustration, minimises errors, and increases trust in the system, which is critical for long-term adoption.
By conducting user interviews and shadowing sessions, we collect the user's first hand experience and needs and translate them into a journey. This helps us identify key moments where decision making support is most critical, ensuring that the solution we are designing for provides guidance in a way that aligns with user expectations. The user journey is essential, but we don’t stop there. To really understand if the solution works, we test the ideas with the same professional users who have gathered the information form, to validate the concept together. And we make sure that in the process of actually using the tool, there is a constant feedback loop between the user and the tool. Continuous feedback on the data allows for continuous improvements of the output.
Putting effort in ‘transparency through context’ results in confidence. Users trust the tool’s insights and the provided next best actions and they feel empowered to act decisively.
In professional environments users are bound to switch between different devices, teams and contexts to carry out their tasks. For example, a maintenance engineer might need to prepare all the documentation needed to get ready for an annual maintenance session from his office on his laptop but needs quick access to the same data on a mobile device during a field inspection day.
Consistency ensures professional users can rely on the platform to behave predictably and intuitively, regardless of the device, touchpoint, or environment. This principle covers everything from interface design copy and terminology, to workflows and data visualisations. In fact, a consistent user experience minimises confusion, reduces the learning curve, and reinforces trust in the system.
Professionals don’t have time to relearn interfaces or adapt to inconsistencies, they need a tool that feels familiar, supportive and intuitive, no matter how or where they use it.
We work with a client in the field of fire safety, where engineers install and configure fire safety systems. During each phase of the installation process, they have to switch between different tools, apps, and platforms. They can be standing in front of a fire panel to configure it, but need to access a laptop to input critical information. Not per say the best device for that specific moment. We’ve seen engineers taking notes on their phones as a workaround, only to later transfer these notes manually to their laptops. A process prone to errors and omissions. This lack of consistency across touchpoints not only disrupted their workflow but also introduced potential risks, as mistakes in configuration or documentation could have serious consequences for safety compliance.
What we have seen during the interviews with the professional users of our clients, is that they will often find their own shortcuts to overcome the frustration of not having a seamlessly connected product through different devices. This can and has resulted in them using tools that are not compliant to security standards.
To design solutions that support users across devices and contexts, it's essential to map out their full workflow using Customer Journey Mapping. In fact, by analysing their end-to-end journey, we can identify where key interactions happen, which touchpoints they rely on at different moments, and where pains might slow them down. Having done this, we can move into Service Blueprinting, where we take a step further and complete the journeys with the supporting systems, data flows, and backend processes that are used or will be used.
If we translate the results of these mappings we can be sure we will get to a human-centred driven, consistent and seamless workflow that feels familiar, supportive and intuitive for the users that have to work with it.
It is not uncommon for professional users to work under time pressure. They’re executing high frequency tasks where too many steps or unclarity can cause unnecessary friction in their workflow.
A common pitfall in B2B design is adding features or “kindness” elements that might delight in a consumer setting, but distract in a professional one. A B2B situation is not about entertainment or customer loyalty, it is about a clear, efficient and swift process. This means cutting to the chase: prioritising features that directly support users’ workflows while removing distractions or redundant elements.
By focusing on efficiency, you’re respecting the user’s time and expertise. Any tool that does that, helping professional users take fewer steps to achieve their goals faster, becomes indispensable in their day-to-day workflow.
An operational employee from our client Hertek receives an email notification whenever a client adds a new installation. The initial email for this purpose was friendly and conversational, starting with their name, a polite introduction, and detailed context. However when talking to the employee during user research, they expressed "I don’t need all this kindness." And "I get dozens of these emails daily, just give me the key details." It was clear that the email needed to be stripped down. The final version was a concise and action-focused version of the first one, highlighting only the critical information they needed to complete their task efficiently.
By observing professional users and mapping their workflows, we identify unnecessary friction points. Methods such as shadowing and user interviews help uncover inefficiencies, allowing us to refine tools that minimise distractions and so maximise speed and efficiency. The goal is to design interfaces and interactions that respect the user's time and expertise, making their work smoother and more effective.
Embracing ‘Efficiency Over Kindness’ results in tools that professionals rely on because they help them complete tasks quickly and without hassle, boosting productivity and reducing frustration.
When a professional user gets more and more experienced with a tool and with a workflow, they need less information to achieve their goals. A way to accommodate that is ‘Progressive Reduction’. This is a principle that adapts tools, interfaces, or communications to meet the evolving needs and expertise of users. It starts with a comprehensive and detailed experience designed to guide new or less experienced users. As users become more familiar with the tool or process, the experience evolves to reduce unnecessary details, focusing only on the essential elements. This gradual simplification ensures that the tool remains effective and relevant to users at every stage of their journey.
New users benefit from detailed guidance that minimises confusion and builds confidence, while experienced users are empowered with streamlined interactions that enhance efficiency and productivity. By tailoring the experience over time, Progressive Reduction not only accelerates the learning curve for beginners but also prevents frustration for advanced users who no longer require basic instructions.
In our last principle, we introduced an operational employee that receives detailed emails for each new installation. For new or less experienced employees, the email may need to provide more detailed instructions: the client’s name, installation details, and a step-by-step guide to register the installation in the system. Over time, as the employee becomes familiar with the process, these details can be gradually reduced. Eventually, the email may only include the essential data needed to act immediately, like the installation ID and a direct link to the registration platform. This evolution ensures that the email always matches the user’s level of expertise, streamlining their workflow.
To implement Progressive Reduction effectively, we analyse how users interact with a tool over time. We first plan an interview to identify which elements are most helpful for beginners but become redundant for experienced users. We recommend always having users with different experience levels.
Once the solution has been designed, the interview shifts towards a usability testing format, if we have all the information needed. Once the solution is live, we can plan another usability testing session to together define which information can be gradually deleted, and ensure that reduction does not negatively impact performance or introduce errors.
Applying Progressive Reduction results in a system that adapts to its users, ensuring a smooth onboarding process for newcomers while optimising efficiency for experienced professionals.
Tools for professional users are rarely one-size-fits-all, as different roles within an organisation have distinct responsibilities, workflows, and priorities. A well-designed tool presents essential features upfront while allowing deeper layers of complexity to be accessed when needed. We call this principle ‘Layered Complexity’, which ensures that different roles can interact with the same tool in a way that suits their specific tasks, without unnecessary complexity for those who don’t need it.
Unlike Progressive Reduction, which adapts to an individual’s growing expertise over time, Layered Complexity ensures that users with different responsibilities always have access to the right level of detail for their role. This prevents overwhelming users with irrelevant information while still providing advanced capabilities where necessary. The result? A tool that remains intuitive for all users while supporting power users in their more complex workflows.
Our client Experience Fruit Quality, uses a performance analysis tool for fruit ripening. A quality manager may need a simple dashboard with high-level performance metrics for quick reviews, while a data analyst might need access to raw data, custom visualisations, or predictive models. Instead of cluttering the interface with all these features at once, the tool keeps the dashboard clean and intuitive for managers, while enabling analysts to drill down through secondary menus or advanced settings. In this way, the tool doesn’t enforce complexity on every user but makes deeper functionalities readily available to those who need them.
To design Layered Complexity effectively, we first analyse how different roles interact with the tool. By shadowing users with methodologies like ‘a day in the life’, we uncover which features are essential for which different roles. It is important to get a complete overview of all the roles involved and understand what their goal is, so that we can design the tool based on that. This allows us to define primary layers (e.g., key dashboards, quick actions) and secondary layers (e.g., advanced settings, detailed reports).
This structured approach ensures that every user, whether a frontline worker, a manager, or a specialist, can efficiently navigate and use the tool without frustration. The tool is intentionally structured to fit the distinct needs of different roles from day one.
Tools for professional users are often used across a variety of environments, from office desktops to handheld devices in the field. Responsive design ensures that interfaces resize to fit different screen sizes, but adaptive design goes a step further by tailoring the experience to the specific context of use. A technician working on-site may need simplified navigation and offline access, while their co-worker in the office using the same portal may require detailed reporting tools and data visualisation.
By adapting to the user's environment and device, the tool ensures usability in any context, enhancing its overall effectiveness and reliability. Content is like water, making it fit to all different screen sizes used in the field would help provide a better experience and so improve users workflows.
A field technician spends most of their time on the road and at different job sites, often in environments where efficiency and ease of access are critical. The digital tool they use should adapt to these conditions rather than simply shrink or expand to fit different screen sizes.
For instance, when a technician arrives at a site, they may only need a simple, tap-friendly checklist on their smartphone to confirm completed tasks, ensuring a quick and frictionless check-in process. The interface should prioritise large buttons, minimal text, and offline functionality for when connectivity is limited.
However, when that same technician is troubleshooting a complex issue, they might switch to a tablet or desktop, where they need access to a more detailed interface. In this scenario, the tool can expand to show a troubleshooting guide with interactive diagrams, historical data, or live chat support with experts.
This principle ensures that the tool is not just available across different devices but optimised for the user’s context, ultimately improving usability, reducing frustration, and enhancing productivity in any working environment.
To implement this principle, we make use of both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. On one hand it’s very important to collect information about how users use the tools in different contexts. On the other hand, especially if a redesign or an optimisation is needed, it is also very interesting to look through quantitative data analysis where, how and how much specific features are used. In this way data analysis is used to validate the insights we have collected on the field or during interviews.
Prioritising and reworking these findings into the digital product or service, ensures that your professionals are empowered with the right tools at the right moment.
Designing digital tools for professional users demands a nuanced approach that balances usability, user-centredness, reliability, and technical sophistication. By applying these seven design principles, we create solutions that empower professional users, streamline workflows, and drive business success. These principles reflect our belief that workers deserve tools as smart and capable as they are, tools that enhance their abilities, respect their time, and ultimately help them achieve their goals with confidence and efficiency.
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