Each item recaps a project experience (estimated 1 minute reading time per project).

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Context

A client CIO eagerly awaited IBM's dashboard design. Internally, our team agreed that the existing Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) status dashboard was outdated and ugly. The IOC Engineering Director was fond of a traditional-looking dashboard shown to him by an outside creative agency, while the IOC Design Director's motto was to "break it and remake it," so he was reluctant to use a typical design.

My role

I drafted a dashboard design based on client needs, but neither director liked the dashboard. I invited a few designers from other teams to a 3-day "Blitz." (Our theme song was "Ballroom Blitz" by The Sweet). After reviewing the user research, each of us designed a dashboard, including an unusual "concept car" design.

I held a meeting with the designers, directors, and the client to review the dashboard options. I asked everyone to say what they liked and disliked about each design instead of advocating for a favorite. Based on the eye-opening results, we designers collaborated to draft a coherent dashboard experience with the best aspects of each option.

Results

The client CIO felt a sense of co-creation and therefore was more supportive of the end result. The Engineering Director demonstrated increased confidence in our designers.

Context

Our Design Team redesigned the Health Insights dashboards as the dashboards were reimplemented in a new Business Intelligence (BI) tool.

Because the Analysts who would be customizing the out-of-box dashboards for our clients were not BI programmers, our cross-functional product team kept the dashboard coding simple, at the expense of some slicker visual design. Our Product Director questioned whether the resulting dashboards had enough "Wow."

My role

I had 3-5 days to respond to the Product Director's question, working alone. I researched state-of-the-art dashboard design, including competitors, designs shared online and cited in "best of" articles, and real-life examples showing our BI tool's visual design possibilities.

I identified what I liked and disliked about each dashboard I curated. I synthesized the strongest characteristics into three coherent "makeovers" of one of our dashboards. I shared my findings with the cross-functional team..

Results

Given this information, the Product Director was satisfied and ultimately agreed with our approach. I was able to use one of the three makeover options to accelerate a Health Equity dashboard design project.