CASE STUDY

Insights Console

PROJECT BRIEF

The Insights Console is a data-driven digital dashboard designed to provide users with immediate, at-a-glance visibility into operational and performance information. Serving as the central hub of the system, the console aggregates key data points across multiple modules into a single, cohesive workspace that supports informed decision-making and efficient daily workflows.

CLIENT NEEDS

  • Offer modular, customizable, permission based widgets

  • Add new insights that encompass all modules including accounting, sales, service, parts, and payroll

  • Leverage current APIs to drive real-time and contextual data, ensuring accuracy and relevance

USER NEEDS

  • Personalize the experience based on role, preferences, and business needs

  • Create and manage multiple consoles to support different roles, responsibilities, or areas of focus

  • Visibility into product inventory levels, highlight items requiring immediate attention, and recommend relevant training resources to support ongoing development

PHASE 1: Discovery

We evaluated the legacy dashboard to identify user pain points, establish a clear picture of existing constraints and align on business objectives and desired outcomes for the next iteration of this console.

  • What needs to change: the widgets occupy more real estate than necessary for the data provided, limiting the amount of information available at a glance

  • What is possible: expand insights beyond the service and sales modules, and their three reporting categories

  • What matters most: provide users with behavior-based insights into the information they frequently use, modernize the design to meet updated style standards

PHASE 2: Definition

We focused on a practical strategy to set a clear direction for the design process.

  • Developed detailed, empathy-driven profiles representing the target users to create personas:

    • A/P Clerk, Accounting Manager

  • Formulated actionable problem statements to articulate the core problem and guide the solution:

    • Users need a way to flexibly manage, reconcile, and save progress on vendor payments, as the current rigid, check-only workflow lacks visibility into invoice status and prevents collaborative processing, leading to manual errors and duplicate payments.

  • Mapped the user journey by diagramming the required steps, highlighting obstacles, and featuring opportunities for improvement.

  • Translated user needs into specific functional requirements for the software that were viable within the project scope.

    • Filter invoices by vendor name/number, invoice number, due date

    • Reconcile individual vendor invoices

    • Queue invoices for payment at a later time

    • Freeze activity on a vendor when multiple users are active on the screen

    • Add payment options: cash, credit card, EFT

Wireframes

To translate functional requirements into a tangible interface, I first designed a series of low-fidelity wireframes. These sketches focused on establishing a logical hierarchy and spatial organization. By mapping out the main steps of the process in this static format, I ensured the structural integrity of the solution before moving into interactive prototyping.

PHASE 3: Ideation & Design

Prototype

Once the Agile team aligned on the structural layout, I developed an interactive prototype to simulate the final user experience. By incorporating functional transitions and precise interactions, I created a high-fidelity model that clearly demonstrated the software’s behavior. This served as a critical reference for both developers and QA teams, ensuring technical implementation remained faithful to the intended design.