Services Central

Transforming Analog Service Workflows into Digital Experiences

UX Designer | Thermo Fisher Scientific | Launch Team Contributor

My Role

UX Designer brought onto an existing team to help design and launch the Services Central application. I led the creation of a comprehensive prototype that simulated the full end-to-end experience of using Services Central across its core features. Worked alongside a lead designer and another designer to execute end-to-end research, workflow design, prototyping, and stakeholder alignment. Collaborated with PMs and developers to ensure feasibility and clarity during rapid iteration.

Team

Lead Product Manager
Lead UX Designer
UX Designer (x2)

Product Managers (x2)
Engineering Lead
QA Analyst

Timeline: 2021 - 2022

Context and Goals

The Services Central Development Timeline

Business needs

Prolonged instrument downtime was common due to a lack of visibility into technician scheduling. Field teams also relied on printed service packets and handwritten notes, causing delays and inconsistent reporting. Services Central aimed to digitize these workflows to reduce downtime, improve task visibility, and standardize service documentation.

Goals

Minimize instrument downtime by increasing visibility into technician scheduling
Reduce technician admin time by 25%
Provide real-time service progress tracking
Improve accuracy and consistency of customer-facing reports

Constraints

Diverse technician workflows across regions and product lines
Low-connectivity environments (on-site labs, remote regions)
Tight timeline for MVP delivery

Research and Discovery

A storyboard going through the steps of what a user experience would be like for a planned maintenance of an instrument.

An Access Training-focused Problem Statement that answers the question: "How do we serve up entitled and desirable training to contract customers?"

Discovery Methods

Interviewed SMEs across product lines
Mapped task flows and captured points of friction
Audited existing tools used in parallel (e.g., Excel logs, CRMs)

Key Findings

Customers had no visibility into service progress or technician arrival times, contributing to prolonged downtime and frustration
Technicians had to juggle multiple systems and often duplicated notes
Service logs were often delayed or error-prone
The handoff from field to internal systems (e.g., invoicing, service history) was fragmented

Design Approach

Challenges and Solutions

All screen resolution examples of Services Central.

Creating a seamless onboarding experience for customers was a key adoption driver. It took extensive user feedback, cleaned-up data, and multiple design iterations to reach a version ready for commercial release.

Flows and Components

Developed a fully interactive prototype simulating the entire application, allowing stakeholders and users to walkthrough every feature and task flow prior to development
Designed service order flow: task list → steps → notes → completion
Built responsive layouts for both mobile and tablet use
Created componentized structure to support future internationalization

Team Collaboration

Weekly design reviews with PM and engineering
Used Figma to maintain up-to-date prototypes and annotate requirements
Held alignment sessions with SMEs to validate accuracy

Challenges and Solutions

Onboarding instruments for service proved to be one of the most difficult features to get right. It required cleaning up backend data, iterating through multiple UI versions, and gathering detailed customer feedback. While not initially expected to be so complex, onboarding was pivotal to platform adoption and was prioritized for commercial release.

An instrument description page that has the 'Knowledge base' section highlighted.

Challenge 1: Reducing instrument downtime through self-service tools

Solution: Introduced an integrated knowledge base (via MindTouch) to empower users to troubleshoot equipment independently. Surfaced content using pre-filtering based on contract entitlement, instrument type and application environment to reduce friction and improve content discoverability

A scale that has the words 'Feature Ambition' and 'Technical Reality' being weighed against the other.

Challenge 2: Balancing ambition with delivery scope

Solution: While the vision for Services Central included advanced features like warranty-to-contract conversions and deeper system integrations, not all could be realized in the initial release. These were documented for future exploration, allowing the team to focus on high-impact, feasible features for launch.

Solution: Progressive enhancement-retaining familiar patterns while introducing better alternatives

The Services Central Onboarding feature iteration loop. 'Data Cleanup' feeds into 'Design Iteration' which feeds into 'Customer Feedback Integraion'. Repeat.

Challenge 3: Designing a seamless onboarding flow for customers

Solution: Worked across teams to clean and structure backend data, iterated through multiple onboarding screens, and incorporated direct customer feedback to create a simplified and scalable experience

Discovery Methods

Interviewed SMEs across product lines
Mapped task flows and captured points of friction
Audited existing tools used in parallel (e.g., Excel logs, CRMs)

Key Findings

Customers had no visibility into service progress or technician arrival times, contributing to prolonged downtime and frustration
Technicians had to juggle multiple systems and often duplicated notes
Service logs were often delayed or error-prone
The handoff from field to internal systems (e.g., invoicing, service history) was fragmented

Outcomes

Post-launch Impact

Services Central continues to be used by field service teams across multiple regions and has become the standard platform for service execution and reporting. Ongoing enhancements are being rolled out based on technician feedback and evolving service needs.

👩🏼‍🔬 User

Major Pharma company

“Services Central has improved managing our instrumentation, tremendously. This platform is not only user friendly, but allows for visibility on services scheduled and contracts for all instrumentation supported. I look forward to future enhancements and continued use of the portal.”

👨‍🔬 Jason

Principal Scientist
Biotechnology company

"My first impression of Services Central is the immediate ease at which I can find information on past instrument services. It is important for me to know what and when things were last done and when I need to consider scheduling annual maintenance. It also helps me view the bigger picture about the overall performance of a system, whether it be a mass spectrometer or an HPLC."

👩🏽‍🔬 Josephine C. Longoria

Supervisor Analytical Operations
LCRA Environmental Lab Services

Services Central has made me smarter about my instrument's service history. With this information at my fingertips, it has made me, my team, and my company more efficient. We have gone to a monthly service meeting instead of a weekly meeting. I now have more time to focus on my other management responsibilities instead of worrying about my instrument’s services being addressed in a timely manner.

Reflections and Learnings

Good design isn’t just about reducing friction-it’s about showing users they haven’t been forgotten

What I Learned

Designing for mobility means embracing offline-first thinking and anticipating constraints
Field users don’t need flash-they need clarity, speed and trust in the tool