Data Platform Redesign
Data Platform Enhancement
OVERVIEW
A national bank was in the process of developing a centralized data platform and needed help in improving the usability of the tool. They reached out to EY to help provide guidance on how to improve the tool from a usability and visual aesthetics perspective.
Team: 2 UX/UI designers
Duration: 4 weeks
Tools: Figma, Teams, Excel
CHALLENGE
This platform was being developed containing BI dashboards for business users to access data. In addition, the client was unsure of how to adhere to the company’s style guidleines.
GOAL
My goal was to analyze the current sate designs from an overall navigation perspective as well as a dashboard perspective and provide enhanced high-fidelity designs.
01 - USER RESEARCH
Due to the time constraints, we are unable to interview the platform end users prior to the redesign. Instead, we communicated with the Senior Vice President of Data Management and his team to understand users experience with the tool. We also leveraged the user journeys and personas clients provided to identity key features and opportunity areas.
02 - Competitive Analysis
To understand the guiding design principles and industry best practices, we have conducted a competitive analysis by looking across four leading platforms.
From this analysis, we identified these four guiding design principles to follow:
Web Accessibliity
Industry leaders focus on accessibility to ensure users with a range of abilities are able to easily user their services. Key areas include font legibility, color consideration, and making navigation keyboard-friendly.
Navigation
Similar dashboards have very clear information architecture and navigation. In most cases, one primary form of navigation is used to avoid redundancy and confusion.
Search & Filter
Incorporating an easily accessible & always visible search and filter section allows users to quickly find content they are looking for.
Targeted
Leaders in this space focus heavily on a targeted and personalized experience. They allow users to create custom dashboards and pin dashboards they view most frequently to a personalized home page.
03 - HEURISTIC ASSESSMENT
We provide a heuristic assessment of current integration areas of the data platform site based on design and usability. Although it is not a substitue for end user inputs and feedback, we’d hope to identify areas for design enhancement.
Given the short amount of time we have, we have divided our recommendations into Release 1 Update and Future Releases. Release 1 Update, refers to quick fixes for shorter term (tactical fixes), which will create improvements in usability and visual aesthetics. Future Releases are medium-term fixes which will enhance usability further as well as visual aesthetic.
03 - HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Creating high-fidelity wireframes that incorporating design thinking, setting up clear information architecture, and streamlining the design system to ensure a seamless while ensuring accessibility and usability. It's an iterative process that involves continuous refinement and iteration based on feedback from users and stakeholders.
Navigation
Setup a clear information architecture upfront will help simplifying the navigation and avoid confusion and redundancy. It would also allow each design element to be intentional and purposeful.
Readability & Accessibility
Simple changes such as adjusting shape and font color will greatly increase readability and accessibility. And it is always good practice to pair icon with texts, unless it has been universally used (e.g., magnifier for search).
Consistency
Streamlining the typeface, font size and font color, as well as various design components can greatly improve and ensure a seamless user experience.
04 - USABILITY TESTING
My primary research goal is to learn what the users think about the current data platform tool redesign
5 remote usability sessions
Sessions were conducted on Teams and the duration is ranging from 30 – 60 minutes
Diverse participants
Participants include one novice user with little to none knowledge, two business users with intermediate knowledge and two technology/power users
Clickable prototype
Participants interacted through screenshare with a clickable prototypes built in Figma
2. We can improve the data visualization for clearer understanding.
Most users were able to understand the charts with further examination, but there is potential to improve the graphics to help with the understanding faster and clearer.
3. A personalized dashboard would be most useful for the users.
Users found the current content useful for them, but they also mentioned other information that would make the tool even more valuable.
Overral Findings
1. The current navigation works well
Most users were able to complete the tasks and use the application without additional instruction. Many have express that the navigation was straightforward.
The project of creating a data platform with a short amount of time and limited control over the graph using Power BI posed significant challenges for us. Despite the lack of time to follow a formal UX process, the result was successful and well-received by clients. The key takeaway is that even when facing constraints, such as time and technology limitations, it's possible to create a positive user experience by focusing on the essentials and gathering feedback from users throughout the design process.
05 - Key Takeaways