Amplio Network
Designing accessible and easy to navigate desktop apps for knowledge sharing in Africa.
Role
Product Designer
Team
1 Design Lead, 4 Designers
Timeline
May 2024 - Aug 2024
SKill
Figma, UX Research, Client Relations, UI design
Summary
Amplio Network is a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower the world's most vulnerable communities through knowledge sharing. Our task was to redesign Amplio’s severely outdated internal tools, the Audio Content Manager (ACM) and Talking Book Loader (TB Loader). I worked on transforming ACM’s main audio library and three essential assistants, which simplified the process of creating deployments where audio contents are stored.
ACM Prototype Overview
Did you know? The Audio Content Manager hasn’t been updated since 2007! This is the original interface:
Now, the ACM looks like this...
Accessing the Audio Library
So, What is Amplio?
Founded in 2007, Amplio aimed to address global poverty by creating simple, cost-effective, technology-based solutions to empower low-literate people with access to knowledge. Their target is reaching the most marginalized and underserved populations in remote rural areas. Collaborating with partners and supporters, they deliver programs across many sectors, including agriculture, health, and education.
How does it work?
Audio files containing recordings of various topics are uploaded onto hand held speaker devices which Amplio refers to as Talking Books.
The Amplio Talking Book is a rugged, battery-powered audio device designed for users with low literacy skills.
With the Talking Book, you can deliver hours of content in any language, with multiple topics and playlists.
Through national partnerships, Amplio has positively impacted over two million people in low-literate communities!
The challenge is that Amplio’s internal tools used to deliver audio contents to these devices are so out-dated that it is (1) confusing and time-consuming to learn and (2) difficult to navigate for program managers that deliver audio files.
Understanding our user
To collect a better understanding of our users and their use of Amplio’s internal tools, we conducted 4 user interviews, split between experienced users (2+ years of experience) and inexperienced users (2 or less years of experience).
For the Amplio Content Manager:
I grouped important feedback from the user interviews and the heuristic evaluation into a priority matrix to measure the amount of impact and effort required for various solutions.
From this categorization, we focused on the quick wins and major projects:
• Modernizing ACM’s main home screen
• Redesigning ACM’s assistants that are used in the process of creating deployments
• Creating a Help & FAQ page that allows users to contact higher ups or watch a tutorial
• Making efficient playlists and filters to easily find audio content
Let's Sketch! Wireframing
After affinity mapping and categorizations, we began to draft wireframes for how we envision the new screens can look. My main priorities were the audio library and the assistants, so I wireframed all of my ideas down.
Notable Changes:
• Navigation menu that replaced drop down for categories
• Cut down clutter in the data table
• Moved audio play button to the bottom
• Changed menu filtering to table filtering
Improvements:

• Popup bar became a menu page providing a bigger screen
• Steps are clearly divided and confined within its own section
Jumping off the Sketches -> Medium Fidelity
We spent many weeks within medium fidelity to explore even more iterations and flows for the ACM. Every week, we presented different screens to our client and improved them upon clients’ feedback.
Here are some of my major design decisions:
• Navigation Menu: easy to move across screens & collapsible for an expanded view
• Progress bar for Assistants: able to walk through each distinct step
• (Main) Filters for Table: seamlessly filter through languages, categories, etc
• (Main) Customized Columns: limit of 6 columns but can swap columns
• Program Selection: conveniently switch to other programs without logging in and out
Finally, Users can...
Move around the Audio Content Manager with ease! I finalized the following high fidelity screens and prototypes, and there were many changes made during this process from the previous medium fidelity designs.  
Access the Audio Library
A collection of all imported audio contents with detailed information and playable audio. Users can listen to an audio, filter through audio contents, or customize table columns in this library.
Walk Through Assistants
Step by step explanations that teaches the user how to import content, add it onto existing deployments and playlists, assign content to system prompts, and optionally add custom greetings.
Manage Deployments
Active, upcoming, and archived deployments are all accessible in the Deployment Table. Users can see how long the deployment will be in session or revive previous deployments. Otherwise, there is the option to export deployments to the Talking Book Loader.
Working with a Consistent design System
The ACM and TBL now have UI elements that are not only consistent between both platforms, but also maintain the character and branding of Amplio’s other applications that did not exist before.
Base icons were pulled from MaterialUI’s component kit, and I customized a unique Talking Book device icon specially for Amplio’s applications.
What was the Impact?
By the conclusion of our project, our team delivered two final designs for the Amplio Content Manager and the Talking Book Loader. Our designs will be used by Amplio’s program staff to dispatch audio content onto the talking books faster and easier, in turn serving the needs of millions across 14 countries.
“The exceptional work on the redesign of Amplio’s desktop applications will significantly improve user experience and productivity. The team’s approach and in-depth understanding of our needs resulted in a design that exceeds our expectations.”


 • Lawrence (Software Engineer @ Amplio)
Reflections
This has been an incredibly rewarding summer, and I have learned so much from the other designers, design lead, our team mentor, and members of the Amplio team...
Importance of a Design System
Even in high fidelities, there were three different icon libraries being in use and incoherent designs, wasting hours at the end of the project to replace all the icons to one library and correcting tiny details. This could have been avoided if we established a design system at the beginning!
Utilize Different User Methodologies
Despite gathering valuable feedback from our four user interviews, most of users’ problems stemmed from trouble communicating with higher-ups rather than direct issues with the tools. To fully critique the original design, the team conducted 20 heuristic evaluations on the apps that proved to be very helpful.
I can't wait to see the impact of our project for communities around the world and the future progress of the Amplio Network!
LePal Spirit
Huddle