Case Study: Designing An Admin Dashboard
Overview
Bristol Capital is focused on offering short term loans to members of the public. It is currently building an online portal that allows users to sign up, and make applications for these loans.
The company envisions this will help it cut costs and also automate most of its processes.
Main Challenge
No dedicated portal that allows users to monitor the progress of their loan applications in real-time and access other features without having to call the customer care number manually.
Scope of Work
- Create a modern visual dashboard design.
- All necessary information must be seen at a glance and thereby limit phone calls.
- The application must be mobile-friendly.
The Approach
- Interview current users of the product and ask them what features they would want in an application being worked upon by the company.Ergonomics and Fitt’s law should be of key emphasis as it is a dashboard, this is also very important for our Information Architecture for our dashboard.
- Interview the company leadership and ask for feature suggestions.
- Merge both and draft a proposal and wire-frames to be presented to both parties to find a middle ground hopefully.
- Present proposition and wire-frames to users and product owners.
- Adjust wire-frames and proposals to accommodate feedback provided.
- Present to both parties again (will be repeated if situation warrants.)
- Readjust if necessary (will be repeated if situation warrants)
- Create a two functional prototype and present for A/B testing with users.
- Present the most preferred version of the product to the owner.
Research
User Survey: I used MS forms to create some questions and sent out to over 1200 contacts from the company’s past customer database. I used a ‘Go to section based on the answer’ technique to enable each user to express their opinion.
Responses From Survey
Most customers highlighted that the challenge they face when contacting customer care is the long waiting time it takes to get a resolution. The application dashboard would solve this as customers will now be able to find answers to most of their questions on the interface.
Key Features Needed
Proposal and Wire-frames
Based on the research results, we would be building a customer-oriented dashboard, highlighting critical features requested by the customers. We would use accent colors to make them easy to locate, applying Fitt’s law in our design process. The key elements will be the following:
- Next payment date.
- Application Status.
- Amount Due.
- Pay Now button (if customers want to make payment before due date.)
- The site must have SSL and other payment security badges or be integrated with a ‘well known and trusted payment service provider.’
There were several iterations during the process. But this was a final wire-frame of what the original product and what it looks like.
Final Prototype
The Result
The final prototypes of the product will be made available to users and will be monitored by the marketing department as time goes on to ascertain which of the versions is the most preferred. This process will include comments based on usability, the time it takes them to get things done, and also find services they need on the dashboard.
