UX Audit & Redesign of Dashboard

Performance Management tool. 2023

Overview
My Performance Management is a platform used by the company to track, analyze, and enhance the performance of their employees. It helps streamline the performance review process, making it more efficient and data-driven.


What is the role of the dashboard?
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The Dashboard has to provide a centralized, visual representation of employee’s key performance data and progress towards goals, enabling quick insights and decision-making.
Role
Senior UX/UI Designer
Responsibilities
Usability testing
Heuristic Evaluation
Problem solving
Measure user satisfaction

Why redesign the dashboard?

The frequency of user visits and the time spent on the dashboard are low because users lack the time to navigate a complex dashboard. Research identified four major problems with the old dashboard:

  1. A logical connection between different sections is missing, which hampers coherent information delivery.
  2. Interpreting the impact on overall performance and growth is time-consuming.‍‍
  3. Weak data visualization has led to misinformation, inaction and clutter.‍
  4. Managers feel that proxy access to assignees' dashboards is inefficient, making it challenging for them to manage multiple employees effectively.‍

How might we transform our dashboard to improve usability, enhance clarity, and optimize for tablet devices to boost employee performance?

Understanding the problems

Heuristic evaluation + Usability testing
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I began with a Heuristic review to identify usability issues in the dashboard. After the heuristic evaluation, I conducted unmoderated usability testing with 10 participants using UserZoom. This testing helped validate the findings, assess their effectiveness from the users' perspective, and prioritize them.

Visibility of system status
1
7/10 participants emphasized the need for a comprehensive overview of their overall performance to grasp results more quickly.
2
8/10 participants were confused about the percentage displayed in the overview chart: Does it signify progress toward a goal or reflect current performance?
4
What thresholds indicate high, medium, and low ratings for self-Snapshots?
5
Clarity on performance metrics chart emerged only after viewing the full metrics list at the bottom of the page.
Recognition rather than recall
3
Participants expressed that they need explanatory text to understand the ratings rather than relying solely on memory.
Uncertainty about whether 'Need more time to observe' with a high percentage signals poor performance.
6
Managers don't have employee details readily accessible on the dashboard.
Recognition rather than recall
7
The majority of participants struggled to connect the results to the performance overview.
8
As the same color appears in different charts/bars to represent different data points or categories, participants struggle to distinguish between them, leading to misinterpretation of the data.
User control and freedom
9
Participants lack the control to search and find the specific snapshot easily.
Aesthetic and minimalist design
10
Managers struggle to read truncated Snapshot comments that can be up to 500 characters long, making it time-consuming and inefficient.
Error Prevention
11
When managers use proxy access to open multiple snapshots in separate tabs, several issues can arise. These include data security concerns, system overload, increased latency, challenges in monitoring, and user confusion from managing multiple tabs.
Visibility of system status
12
All of the participants expressed uncertainty about the period covered by the metrics, as some were displayed quarterly.
Help and documentation
13
Participants are not utilizing the help documentation for more information about performance metrics and how they are measured.
Aesthetic and minimalist design
14
Inefficient color usage makes it difficult for the progression status to stand out.
Help and documentation
15
7/10 participants felt that there is an absence of a clear connection between your performance and progression.
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Goals

Develop

Constraints - Key points to consider for the redesigns:‍

  • Leverage existing code
  • Continuously collaborate with the dev team on design feasibility, as there will be edits to the existing code
  • Limited budget

Exploration‍

I started organizing content by grouping related information and determining how elements on the dashboard relate to each other and improved the flow.‍

# Must know information is placed above the fold to improve usability for both employees and proxy access.

  1. Leaders have access to detailed user information with the ability to send an email and share the profile.
  2. Offered a comprehensive view by including background details in the summary, like Total Snapshots, acknowledged snapshots, reviewers etc.
  3. Instead of a final performance rank, cumulative progress is shown in each category to help employees take actionable measures. A bar chart is used to compare categories.
  4. A brief explanation of each rating is included in the legend and readily accessible on hover.
  5. The performance metrics chart is positioned at the top so employees can quickly identify if action is required. "Met" and "Not Met" statuses are color-coded for quick recognition, and an anchor link guides users to the detailed breakdown.
  6. Self-Snapshots, which showcase an individual's personal contributions or achievements within the organization, are significantly lower in number compared to Snapshots and have been removed from the overview.
Approach 1
Approach 2 (Finalized)

# I explored various ways to display the feedback rating for each question but opted for a color-coded progress bar because it clearly shows the percentage distribution across different ratings.

# The table uses collapsible rows to display reviewers' comments, which explain the aforementioned ratings and are particularly useful for leaders seeking quick access.

Allowing snapshots to open as modal windows instead of tabs keeps the interaction within the current page, reducing system overload, improving data security, providing clear navigation and enhancing user focus.

In the tablet format, the number of columns have been reduced to minimize clutter.

# The metrics have been reorganized to display quarter by quarter, with color-coded results that help users quickly grasp successes and identify areas of improvements.
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To guide users effortlessly to the help documentation, I've created clear prompts with noticeable visual cues, and strategically positioned them on the page.

# The final progression status stands out in pink and is easily identifiable.
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To better justify progression results, the business plans to add a "Goal Tracking" section to help employees set goals with their managers/coaches and compare results, ensuring fair and transparent outcomes.

Results

We conducted a study of the final designs before handing them off to the developers. We wanted to get an understanding whether users' and business requirements aligned with the intentions behind the redesigns.

Good news, the new dashboard has been well-received. "Clear," "Useful," "Quick," "Intuitive," and "Appealing" were terms that were used to describe the impact of the new design. Every small improvement has helped users feel more confident about their performance results, enabled them to make informed decisions and motivated them to initiate snapshots in a timely manner.‍