Global enterprises often treat internal tools as an afterthought. For this project, we asked a bold question: What if getting IT support was as delightful as ordering a coffee?
The “HelpNow” initiative was a comprehensive redesign of the internal Service Management portal. Our goal was to transform a legacy system—dreaded by 30,000+ employees—into a modern, responsive, and intelligent Progressive Web App (PWA).
The transformation from a legacy ITSM tool to a modern employee experience.
1. ITSM pretending to be an Employee Portal
The existing system was an IT Service Management (ITSM) tool where HR and Finance felt like second-class citizens. 84% survey participants used phone service to emails to report non-IT issues.
The first design decision was to create a leveling field for all departments to call home. So we replaced department specific cards with a search-first experience powered by NLP driven elastic-search.
2. The Trust Deficit: Designing for Psychological Safety
The Challenge: Systemic Avoidance
Our research uncovered a critical barrier to adoption: Lack of Trust. 10 out of 12 interviewees admitted they bypassed the portal for sensitive HR requests. Without visible privacy controls, employees defaulted to calling agents or emailing directly. This fear drove a high volume of unnecessary escalations, as users believed “making noise” was the only way to ensure accountability.
The Solution: Visibility & Agency
We moved privacy and accountability from backend policies to First-Class UI Elements.
- User-Controlled Visibility: We introduced an explicit “Private Mode” Toggle. By giving users granular control over who sees their ticket before they submit it, we reduced the anxiety of reporting sensitive issues.
- Operational Accountability: We replaced the feeling of helplessness with agency by adding a direct “Escalate” Action. This served as a psychological safety net—users knew that if the system stalled, they had a “break glass” mechanism to get attention, eliminating the need to preemptively escalate via email.
3. Turning ‘good-to-have’ to a major use case
The legacy system did not work on mobile screens. We planned to design the UI to be responsive as a standard practice, but using native features like camera and voice became one of the most useful and delightful experience.
4. Reducing Barriers to Entry: The PWA Strategy.
We bypassed the Download Barrier (App Store friction) by deploying a Progressive Web App (PWA). This allowed us to leverage native hardware (Camera for barcode scanning) without the high Interaction Cost of installation.
5. Prioritizing Speed of Resolution over Speed of Submission
We strategically ‘shifted left’ the categorization process. By replacing the generic open text field with a structured service catalog, we empowered users to self-triage. This effectively distributed the routing workload and prevented the Help Desk from becoming a Single Point of Failure (SPOF).
6. Omnichannel Entry: Contextual Support at the Point of Need.
We moved beyond the screen to establish a Presence-Based Support Model. By embedding physical triggers (IoT buttons, NFC tags) directly into the office environment, we reduced the friction of ‘finding help’ to near zero.
Fidelity Evolution: From ‘Wizard of Oz’ paper prototypes to deployed IoT touchpoints.
7. From “Radical Simplification” to “Contextual Relevance”
Our initial Heuristic Evaluation revealed that Navigation Overload was driving up operational costs.
- Cognitive Load: Casual users spent >2 minutes navigating complexity.
- System Abuse: Power users were bypassing correct channels to use generic ‘Incident Forms,’ creating a ‘false path’ that required manual triage and created an Extra Hop in Resolution.
We hypothesized that a Search-First paradigm (powered by NLP and Elastic Search) would reduce friction. We pushed for Radical Simplification, effectively removing the browsing interface to rely entirely on intent detection.
Strategic Failure
The design failed Jakob’s Law. Users rely on Recognition over Recall. Removing the service catalog confused users and they felt lost.
Pivot
We recognized that efficiency requires a balance between Discovery and Speed. We pivoted to a Hybrid Navigation Model:
- Restored Affordance: We reintroduced the Service Catalog to ground the user’s mental model and provide ‘Information Scent.’
- Predictive Accelerators: Instead of forcing search, we added Smart Shortcuts (Recent Searches, Most Used, Pins). This effectively personalized the dashboard, turning distinct user behaviors into fast-access paths without cluttering the global interface.
Delivering Real ROI
Annual savings unlocked through self-service and automation.
Increase in fulfillment productivity for IT teams.
Employee satisfaction score (CSAT), a massive jump from historic lows.
“Manageable, modern, and finally human. I truly feel supported.”