A Japanese and English field-sales CRM for a global pharma field force

I was placed with the client side, working from their office as an extension of their design team. I worked on two teams at once. One owned the design system: components, colours, icons, accessibility standards and the process for adding, changing or removing components with developers and product managers. The other owned products, including a CRM for medical representatives and a tool for allocating geographic areas to them.

A project came up that needed both: the pharmaceutical client used a proprietary CRM from another company and wanted to rebuild it, with a product as an extension of our existing ones. I was placed on it because I knew both the design system and the product.

The client's existing CRM belonged to a third-party vendor. The client wanted to customise it for how its own representatives work, and to control its data and confidentiality. We were asked to recreate the product from scratch.

Three things made it hard:

1. 1

   The product was entirely in Japanese, and I could not read it.

2. 2

   Two languages had to work on one screen. The main stakeholders were in the US and India and needed English. The users, in Japan, needed Japanese.

3. 3

   Three time zones (US, India, Japan) with feedback passing through several hands.

I led product design for the feature work, from the concept through UX, UI and visual testing, while the work was divided between a UX designer and a UI designer. I was the link between product managers, developers and designers, and I took reviews from stakeholders. I also worked with the design system team, which meant new patterns stayed consistent with the existing system.

• A language I could not read. A Japanese coordinator translated screens, walked us through the old product and answered our questions.

• Requirements came second-hand. The Japanese team gathered requirements from representatives and stakeholders in Japan, then translated them to us.

• Strict adherence to the existing design system. The new product had to read as an extension of the existing ones. The system had been designed for English.

• Confidentiality. Some targeting parameters and details cannot be shared.

Through the coordinator, we learned the day-to-day of the people who would use it.

• Medical representatives visit healthcare organisations (clinics and hospitals) and healthcare professionals (practitioners), and demonstrate medicines across categories such as gynaecology, cardiology and orthopaedics. The software shows which organisation or professional targets which problem or category.

• Managers oversee several representatives.

• District managers and admins sit above both, across a geography divided into districts, zones and areas.

We created three personas, one for each role, each with a different day.

Japanese text did not fit the same space as English, so a screen that fit English could break in Japanese. I designed each screen to hold both languages, and chose a multilingual typeface that does not break in translation.

The existing patterns were designed for English. Keeping strict adherence to them while making them work in Japanese meant adapting some components.

We tested wireframes with medical representatives and with stakeholders in both the US and Japan, with the Japanese coordinator and translators bridging the language. Testing showed that some assumptions we made in the West did not hold in Japan. Wording can vary by region and the same word can be written in different forms, so we confirmed wording with Japanese translators instead of relying on our own judgement.

The feedback loop was too long. I designed during the day and sent it for review: first the US team, then the Japanese coordinator, then testing with representatives, then their feedback came back through the coordinator. I kept designing in the meantime, so changes arrived after I had already moved on, and we did the work twice. I would set one review gate, share early sketches with the Japanese stakeholders sooner, and batch reviews so each design round had a clear status.