Johnson Controls | Customer Service in SaaS+

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Let's Put YOU in the Story

You’re a security agent working within a team of 50 agents, inside one of six fortified operations centers. Each agent has multiple screens, monitoring a steady stream of alarms. A massive screen at the front of the room assigns alerts in real-time. The room buzzes with activity. But here’s the challenge: 97% of those alarms are false. And yet, the 3% that matter demand immediate and accurate action. Lives and property are often on the line.

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This brings us to our problem statement:

How might we empower agents to cut through the noise and act decisively on critical alerts — while building subscriber trust and satisfaction in every response?

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The Existing System

Disjointed, outdated, and inconsistent across regions. Navigating it adds friction, increases error rates, and slows response in an environment where speed is critical.

Johnson Controls brought my team in to fix that.

As Lead UX Designer, I led a full-service redesign of the Global VSOC platform, starting with on-site ethnographic research. I mapped agent workflows, identified bottlenecks, and built a scalable design system that reduced noise and clarified high-pressure decisions.

The new experience aligned APAC and North American teams, reduced training time, and laid the foundation for future AI and automation. It was presented to the Board, helped revive a key partnership, and is now in active development.

Because in a room full of noise, clarity is the most powerful tool you can give an agent.
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Challenge

Johnson Controls needed to modernize its global video surveillance platform and position it as a white-label solution for high-profile enterprise partnerships. The legacy system was inconsistent, fragmented, and not scalable.

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Role

Lead UX Designer overseeing end-to-end research, design strategy, and stakeholder alignment—culminating in a presentation to the Board of Directors and successfully resubmitting a critical Microsoft partnership bid.

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Approach

Led foundational research, mapped current-state workflows, and created a next-generation security experience powered by AI, ML, and a unified design system. The redesign supported global operations and helped reduce onboarding time, operational errors, and decision latency in high-stakes environments.

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Research Strategy at Johnson Controls

1. Discovery & Contextual Inquiry

• Observed security agents inside fortified operations centers, focusing on how they handled alarms across multiple screens.
• Identified the core problem: ~97% of alarms were false positives, yet the 3% that mattered demanded immediate action.

2. Stakeholder Interviews

• Engaged with security leadership, account managers, and ops staff to clarify business priorities (reduce false positives, improve accuracy, maintain client trust).
• Surfaced gaps between leadership’s expectations and frontline realities.

3. Workflow & Journey Mapping

• Mapped the full alarm-handling process, highlighting inefficiencies and cognitive overload points.
• Documented critical decision-making moments where better design could elevate true threats.

4. Prototype Testing with Agents

• Developed low- and mid-fidelity prototypes that explored improved triage workflows and visual prioritization of alerts.
• Presented these directly to security agents for feedback, gathering direction on usability, mental models, and system fit.
• Iterated based on their input to ensure designs matched real-world needs.

5. Comparative Analysis

• Reviewed best practices from analogous environments (call centers, risk dashboards) to benchmark alert management patterns.

6. Synthesis & Insight Development

• Synthesized findings into actionable opportunities: streamline false alarm handling, surface true risks faster, and improve agent satisfaction.
• Shared insights in workshops with leadership and technical teams, building alignment around both the problem and the solution path.

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The most important insight that emerged was that the agents were not just reacting to alarms — they were, in fact, customer service representatives. Every interaction reaffirmed the value of Johnson Controls’ service, strengthening client trust and loyalty. This shifted the design focus from simply managing alerts to empowering agents with tools that made them more confident, responsive, and effective in delivering service excellence.

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Following research and testing:

• I partnered with product and engineering teams to translate insights into actionable design improvements.

• We prioritized workflows that reduced false-positive noise and elevated critical alerts, then integrated these patterns into the evolving platform design system.

• I worked with leadership to align on a phased rollout strategy, ensuring early wins for agents while laying the groundwork for broader modernization.

• The outcome was a clearer, more efficient experience that gave agents confidence in their tools and gave leadership a framework for scaling improvements across operations centers.

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Impact

Unified User Interface: Delivered a consistent UI across APAC and North American operations, facilitating seamless cross-regional functionality.Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Improved system usability led to quicker response times and more accurate threat assessments by security personnel.Reduced Training Time: The intuitive design decreased the learning curve for new users, resulting in faster onboarding and reduced training costs.Scalable Design Framework: Established a design system adaptable to future technological integrations, including AI-driven analytics and automation features.