Pivot an Administrative Platform
Challenge
For 9 weeks, while working with a design team that consists of 4 members, we were prompted to individually create our own administrative platform. The project was to research as a team to conduct user interviews and exploratory research. The main objective of the platform was to improve a store managers' ability to easily reference daily performance and transaction insights at-a-glance.
Team Members: Kelsey Chereson & Jasmine Braxton
Timeline
Month 1
Week 1: Team Meeting & Project Deliverables
Week 2: Competitive Analysis & Affinity Mapping
Week 3: Moodboards & Style Tiles
Week 4: Design Principles
Month 2
Week 5: User Interview & High Fidelity Design Round 1
Week 6: User Interview & High Fidelity Design Round 2
Week 7: Microinteractions
Week 8: User Interviews Round 3 & Final Prototype
Week 9: Submitting Project Deliverables
Competitive Analysis & Takeaways
Competitors targeted field managers to assist their overall needs in observing a company’s progress.
They strived to convey the feeling of stability and to reinforce a trustworthy appearance.
Utilizing different shades of blue gives off the feeling professionalism and respect.
Multiple colors could be utilized to represent different areas to improve or display positive reinforcement.
Direct & Indirect Brand Competitors
Salesforce
Joblogic
Visual Planning
Dispatch Track
Device Magic
Moodboards
Sweet Leadership
This board was leaning towards a feminine tone with a focus on the importance of leadership.
Neural Community
I wanted to convey the feeling of calm, community, and teamwork with neutral nature tones.
Simply Formal
This conveyed the feeling of a modern professional tone while connecting towards abstract art.
Style Tiles
Graceful Leadership
This style focused on the individual aspect of each employee and how they could be monitored. The manager could view the level of their performance and their objectives for the day.
Calm Organizer
This design was inspired by the importance of keeping track on upcoming projects and activities. The neutral tones were used to convey the feeling of tranquility.
Sentiment Scale
The emotion indicator was the key feature that observes the overall company mood. This in turn could help improve the productivity of the whole office.
Design Principles
Flexibility
Give users the capability to customize their own dashboard layout to speed up interactions and productivity. The platform will provide the capability to cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.
Consistency
Creates familiarity and strengthens intuition by applying the same solution to the same problem. Documenting previous solutions will strengthen the overall company's productivity and intuition.
Clarity
Eliminate ambiguity. Enable managers and employees to see, understand, and act with confidence. We strive to make our platform straightforward and self-explanatory.
User Interviews
Purpose
8 participants were interviewed to gain feedback from participants about the readability and desirability in using various types of style tiles as Pivot's administrative platform.
Takeaways
Having a straightforward design in explaining how the platform works was a key factor for a higher desirability. Style tiles with intuitive features were well received by the majority of participants. Flexible color schemes to align a company’s color palette would increase desirability
Working Well
The style is very utilitarian and intuitive. The color scheme feels earthy and task oriented. Visually the color scheme looks great. The red/orange color has a great balance.
Needs Improvement
On creating a simpler design and being mindful with the visual hierarchy. The objectives seem a bit too broad and the grey & orange contrast could be improved.
Brainstorming
Remove the dreamcatcher picture and create more space. Simplify the month date by not repeating it 4 times.
Users' Quotes
“A level of trust and knowing that your team is highly effective, giving them high standards and allowing them to meet that without necessarily hovering over them, even in a virtual space. ”
“With people working from home, it is much more difficult to keep in touch with everyone, and make sure everything is moving along according to schedule. ”
Final High Fidelity Design
Summary
After conducting the two rounds of user interviews my overall design didn’t change drastically that altered the participants’ user experience. I’ve united two styles Calm Organizer and Sentiment Scale together to achieve my final result. The main objective for Pivot was allowing managers to customize their dashboard to fit their personal goals. Each modular could be moved or hidden to prioritize certain information a manager receives.
Working Well
The majority of users commented that the platform felt calm, playful, and lively. The color scheme was easy on the eyes and it looked finished.
Brainstorming
Some features within the platform had harsh drop shadows and it felt too three dimensional.
Microinteraction
Small Modular Menu
This reveals that the modulars consist of a smaller menu that users could use to either hide or gain more information.
Hidden Modular
This example shows how a modular could disappear from the dashboard when a user no longer needs it.
Mood Scale
This indicates how a user could scale their current mood for the day and the face changes according to the appropriate mood.
Conclusion
I've created a prototype administrative platform for managers to view their employees' performance. After various user interviews, I've learned its beneficial for the platform to let the users customize their own dashboard. Having that freedom allows the platform to continually evolve and improve.