Context
Nokia Teams Comms is a mission-critical communication platform used across industrial campuses (ports, mines, and factories) operating on private wireless networks. The existing product struggled with usability gaps and limited functionality, affecting operational speed and reliability.
Problem statement
Nokia Teams Comms operate in high-noise, high-pressure environments where communication must be instant, reliable, and context-rich. However, the existing system was limited to half-duplex (radio-style) communication, lacked support for file sharing and temporary group collaboration, and did not provide logs for priority interactions.
Design Solution
Designed a low cognitive load interface with clear visual states and glove-friendly interactions tailored for high-risk industrial environments.
Introduced a soft call button alongside the physical trigger to improve accessibility and ease of use.
Enhanced communication with full-duplex calling, rich multimedia attachments for real-time visual assessment, and temporary groups for incident-based coordination.
Incorporated digital tactility through haptics and audio feedback to replicate the reliability of push-to-talk interactions.
My Role as a product designer
UX Workshop
Concept design
User flows
Prototyping
Interaction design
Handoff
Led end-to-end product design, facilitating discovery workshops to align stakeholders and define problem space.
Synthesized insights through affinity mapping to prioritize features, designed scalable user flows, and built interactive prototypes for validation.
Collaborated closely with engineering to ensure feasibility and supported real-world testing in live industrial environments to refine solutions.
Discovery
Define
Concept design
Prototype
Unit testing
Discovery
Requirement Gathering: Conducted workshops with stakeholders and developers to collect requirements through interactive sessions.
Usability feedback
Analyzed user feedback and usage challenges from the existing app.
Define
Clustering Insights: Used affinity mapping to organize requirements into clusters, revealing key themes and actionable insights for the redesign.
User persona
User flows
Concept design
Explored concept directions aligning user needs, business goals, and technical constraints.
Prototype
A modern, user-centered communication platform optimized for industrial environments.
Unit testing
Final outcome
Our design approach prioritized speed and clarity, ensuring users can act with confidence during critical emergency situations.
A modern, user-centered communication platform optimized for industrial environments.
A clear visual hierarchy supported by large, intentional touch targets for effortless and accurate interaction.
Multimedia messaging that enables users to seamlessly attach images, videos, audio, and documents within chat threads.
3. Pressing and holding the FAB or physical button immediately starts communication with the default group, and users need instant feedback about which group they’re broadcasting to.
What business problem does it solve?
Group communication
Push-to-talk (PTT)
Priority calls
Dispatcher-controlled communication
Call recording and playback
Full-duplex voice calls
Multimedia messaging
Communication without internet connectivity on private LTE/5G networks.
Product Improvement
Reduce information overload by prioritizing important groups.
Improve discoverability of relevant groups.
Support role-based communication and access control.
Enhance navigation efficiency by separating frequently used, related, and optional groups.
Impact
70%
Reduced communication initiation time through primary group access using FAB and hardware buttons.
0 wait
Users no longer wait for floor control and can have natural conversations.
30%
Improved overall task completion and communication success rate.
