HMS Networks, Ewon · Service design and UX/UI · 2021-2022

Three tools for one job.
HMS had to become one SaaS.

I had come for fifteen days. I went through the cloud POC screens one by one, each with its finding and its fix, and handed in the document. It earned me sixteen months.

Try the prototype

15 dof audit that opened the mission
8international clients in the research
6organisations tested the concept
3 → 1tools brought into a single way in
01The stakes

The leader sold tools. Ixon was already selling an experience.

    The stakes were not catching up on a feature. It was turning scattered legacy services into one SaaS, for profiles with nothing in common: from production manager to network engineer.

    02My mandate

    Came for a fifteen-day audit. Stayed sixteen months.

    • The way in: the cloud POC team was looking for UX help. Fifteen days of heuristic analysis: for each screen, the finding, the fix, and the “could be” against best practice.
    • The document made the case: Julien Vandercammen entrusted me with guiding the group through its digital transformation, from June 2021 to October 2022.
    • The mandate: install the design function, demonstrate the way of working, and align the whole company around the client.
    03The research

    Nobody asked for a SaaS. Everybody described the same weight.

    • The field: internal experts, from leadership to operations, and observation on the factory floor.
    • The weight, constant from one interview to the next: alerts painful to read, no overview, logs impossible to search, no shared roles.
    • And on the prospect side, nothing to try: no demo, no trial, no starter kit to order online.

    Behind the word “client”, the interviews showed people with distinct needs. What remained was getting a company that saw only one to admit it.

    04The existing experience

    Three logins for one job.

    • The dashboard, eCatcher, Flexy: three tools, three entry points, three logics. That was the real working environment of the time.
    • No way to isolate what deserves attention: no dashboard that says where to look, or how urgently.

    This organisation of engineers documented its machines, rarely the people who use them. That is exactly what design was about to turn around.

    05The customer journey

    Each department defended its own client. The journey brought them together.

    • Every reading was correct: support saw a call, sales a comparison of offers, product a fleet, leadership a market. None of them made a decision possible.
    • The missing object was built: each persona's customer journey, from awareness to upsell, in the room and remotely between Belgium and Sweden.
    • Five to six workshops, on Gather.town and Miro during Covid, then on site: each department had to recognise its client in it.

    Three breaks came out of it, recognised by every department at once. We scoped the MVP on those three.

    06The design pivot

    Three breaks observed, and a fourth that came from the market.

    • Three decisions answer an observed break. The fourth, the demo, came out of no interview: the market imposed it.
    • The price to pay: reconciling data models and twenty years of habits, without taking anything from the installed base.

    Settled at the whiteboard with the functional analysts: they took the architecture, I took the journeys. What remained was checking it held up in front of a real client.

    07The value proposition

    The Ad-Lib: the value proposition in one sentence.

    Product or service

    Our single-entry industrial monitoring SaaS

    Customer segment

    helps teams operating a fleet of connected machines, from manager to operator

    Job to be done

    who want to watch their fleet and act remotely, each in their own role,

    Customer pain

    by sparing them three logins, unreadable alerts and interruptions without warning

    Customer gain

    and by giving them one entry, role-based journeys and a dashboard that says where to look,

    Competing proposition

    unlike the legacy per-service tools, and the competing SaaS without twenty years in the field behind it.

    08The MVP

    One entry, role-based journeys, a fleet you read at a glance.

    The prototype covers the experience end to end, with a production-ready design system, drawn for the field: tablet, thick gloves, cold, reading distance, large targets.

    Three doors, three passwords.

    Heard in the research, access impossible to share between services: everyone had to know which door opens which function.

    • The manager invites each person by role: the network engineer lands in access, the operator in alerts.
    • The client no longer needs to know the internal organisation of the services.
    • And the prospect enters through the demo: no install, no hardware, no human.

    One entry. Everyone lands in their own journey.

    Where to look, and how urgently?

    • The fleet consolidated, its activity, and urgency ranked.
    • The dense screens are drawn for the field, not the meeting room.

    The dashboard says where to look.

    09Validation

    Six organisations, a concept that holds, a budget to build it.

    Tested role by role with six international client organisations, on the clickable end-to-end prototype.

    The single entry and the fleet's readability held. Two things moved: the information hierarchy on dense screens, and the level of detail expected at first contact.

    The validated concept supported approval of the internal build budget, announced by Julien Vandercammen, Head of Cloud Program. The teams took it from there.

    Try the prototype See the launched product

    10The handover

    I came for an interface. I left a function behind.

    • The Concept Report justifies every choice: the why, the what, the how, and the order in which the teams build the rest.
    • The Figma design system, implemented in Angular and used in the product.
    • The customer journey the departments consult, and a shared vocabulary for talking about the client.
    • The method, left with the PMO to steer what comes next.

    Two years later, Ewon Cloud and Ewon Edge were on the market. It is no longer a prototype that stands as the reference: it is the product.

    See the launched product Watch the launch video

    What happened next

    Shipped late 2024. Live today.

    In December 2024, HMS launched Ewon Cloud and Ewon Edge. Their launch promise sells the concept's value proposition word for word: reduce downtime, IT-approved secure remote access, manage thousands of machines, cut travel costs. More than 600,000 gateways deployed worldwide.

    Part of the concept is in production, the rest is in the pipe: single sign-on has arrived, one functionality among all those in the Concept Report.

    HMS has evolved the screens since 2022, building on the research, the vision, the validated prototype and the design system.

    Sources: The Ewon Cloud and Ewon Edge product page · Press coverage, Engineering Update, 30 January 2025

    Contact

    Scattered services that need to become a single SaaS? Let's talk.

    For a role or an engagement, write to me. CV (PDF)

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