HSB
— Maintenance Planning Tool
Tags: UX Research · Service Design · HSB · 2025
Overview
HSB's customers were using an old, licensed maintenance planning tool that no longer met modern standards — and a new one needed to be built. My job was to figure out what that tool should actually be: how board members and maintenance strategists really work, what they need to feel confident, and how to design something simple enough that everyone in a planning group feels safe being part of the process.
I ran six in-depth interviews with board members plus a survey, then seven interviews with internal maintenance strategists plus a second survey. From there, I built archetypes, mapped pain points to a journey, and prioritized design recommendations by impact and feasibility — giving the team a clear foundation to design and build from.
Role: UX Research Consultant
Method: Qualitative interviews, survey analysis, archetype mapping
Two perspectives, one tool
Block ATalking to the boards
Board members rely on the maintenance plan to make budgeting and investment decisions. In reality, however, the plan is often treated as a static reference document rather than an active decision-making tool.
Outdated cost estimates, unclear ownership of updates, and limited technical confidence gradually erode trust in the information. As a result, many boards spend significant time validating recommendations instead of acting on them.
The strongest insight across interviews was clear: transparency creates confidence. Board members didn't necessarily need more data; they needed to understand where the data came from and why they could trust it.
Block BTalking to the strategists
Maintenance strategists revealed a different side of the challenge. Their workflow spans inspections, assessments, planning, and follow-up, yet the process is fragmented across Excel, Underhållsplan Online, paper notes, and email.
Without a shared flow of information, work is duplicated, changes are difficult to track, and valuable knowledge often never makes it back into the maintenance plan. Strategists are left manually bridging the gap between technical assessments and financial decision-making.
The key insight was that the real problem wasn't a lack of expertise. It was the absence of a system designed to connect information, people, and decisions across the entire maintenance planning process.
Rather than designing for a generic user, I synthesized the findings into three archetypes per audience → six total → each with clear goals, frustrations, and a pros/cons breakdown. These became the lens for what the new tool needed to support.
Board side: The Guardian, The Field-Minded Realist, The Translator
Strategist side: The Advisor, The Field Expert, The Connector
The Guardian
Three archetypes
The archetypes
The Field Expert
Works mobile, wants real-time data capture, and fewer round-trip between the site and the office.
The Translator
Bridges technical detail and member communication → needs tools that make complexity legible.
Wants clear guidance and a reliable history → minimizes risk by following the process.
Turning findings into priorities
I scored every proposed feature on impact and feasibility and ranked them → turning research into a sequenced build plan rather than a wishlist.
70% find the current tool technically difficult
65% of actions are reactive, not proactive
90% don't fully understand the technical documentation
Highest priority: Mobile planning view, Decision log, Contextual help
Phase 2: Drag-and-drop planning, economic system integration, cost visualization
Outcome
The research gave HSB's product team a clear answer to "what should we build?" → not just a feature list, but a shared understanding of what makes a maintenance plan feel trustworthy, and a planning group feel safe contributing to it. The roadmap became the starting point for prototyping and testing against the six archetypes.
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