Kugadi

Kugadi is a software company providing security guard management solutions utilizing RFID technology. Kugadi equips it's customers with a SAAS dashboard to manage their client accounts and to track employee progress down to a task level. The employee accountability created through the RFID technology is proving to be a powerful tool for Kugadi's users to attract new clients.

The Challenge

To redesign the Kugadi manager's dashboard to enhance the experience for current and future customers.

Project Details

2 Week Sprint
User Research
Information Architecture
User Experience Design
User Interface Design

Industry Research

I began this assignment by researching trends and statistics regarding user habits particular to dashboards and page navigation.

Discoveries

Research shows that good checkout usability is less about the number steps, but rather how user-friendly each step is. Breaking up content into smaller sections proved to give users a better overall experience

The user threshold for cognitive overload within a dashboard display is between 3-7 visuals

Users expect a dashboard to express a flow and layout of data prioritized

Utilizing resources such as SEM Rush and Spyfu, I discovered companies that were bidding on the same keywords as Kugadi. This assured I was comparing the most relevant competitors within my feature analysis. This feature analysis chart focused on the elements included in each company's dashboards.

A market positioning chart helped to visualize where the competitors lie in the market, and clearly identify the opportunity for Kugadi to create the most impact. Kugadi has an opportunity to compete in the market by achieving a visually appealing dashboard with concise navigation.

Stakeholder Insights & Business Analysis

Consulting with the company stakeholders helped me to understand the business goals and needs which I then defined within a Lean UX canvas. This living document was continually updated throughout the assignment to reflect the changes incurred through the agile design process. The canvas served to clearly define the business goals and devise potential strategies to achieve said goals.

Key Stakeholder Takeaways

The Kugadi team looked into the analytics of the dashboard to confirm the pages with the greatest volume of traffic. These analytics served to validate the most frequented and essential pages being visited on the dashboard. They confirmed these pages to be:

User Management Page

Account Management Page

Incident Reports

Details Map

User Research

Knowing the information architecture would play a critical role in this assignment, I conducted an audit to create a sitemap in order to learn about the user's varying mental models particular to the ontology and taxonomy of the manager's dashboard.

Card Sort Testing and Results

Based on the content and structure of the current site, I tested 5 individuals through an open and closed card sorting exercise.

75% of tested users claimed the term “Account Management” as the navigation grouping is confusing - they believed this was for their personal account details.

100% of users failed the open card sorting

User and Stakeholder Interviews

I then went on to conduct user interviews. I spoke to 2 of the company stakeholders and 4 potential users.

"Users are returning to the dashboard primarily for two reasons, to add new accounts or to download an incident report."

Kugadi Stakeholder

"The terminology used to navigate the dashboard is very confusing and lengthy. Also, there is no set hierarchy of list items that indicates an order of steps. "

Anonymous User

"The employee tracking is a main selling point of Kugadi's, yet you have to dig to find the detail map and task completion statistics."

Anonymous User

Identified User Pains

Lack of engagement

Limited data visualization and lengthy reports to sift through

Cognitive Overload

Overwhelming amount of options included in the navigation that additionally lack sufficient hierarchy

Accessing Critical Items

Finding essential items requires sifting through layers of information

Defining Kugadi's Primary Users

The user persona, Manager Mike, represents the majority of the current user's habits, pains, and gains. Mike is the District Director of a Security Solutions, a company offering security guard services to an array of clients. His primary responsibilities include ensuring incidents are resolved in a timely fashion, managing internal personnel, registering new clients, registering new users and liaising between personnel and clients as necessary.

Manager Mikes user journey map provides context to the pain points associated with the product. Journey maps not only encourages empathy, but it also help highlight the opportunities for improved design.
Mike experiences feelings of confusion as he tries to operate reports and maps with minimal guidance, overwhelmed as he sifts through navigation, and concludes his journey feeling defeated.

Ideation

With a clearly defined tribe, I could then formulate How Might We questions to guide my ideation process. Time-boxing myself, I brainstormed upon each question to quickly generate a multitude of potential solutions.

Minimum Viable Product

I evaluated and organized my ideations within a Moscow chart to determine the value each feature would bring to the users in contrast to the impact each feature would pose on the business. This helped my arrive at my solution.

I believe designing a lean dashboard with engaging visuals, concise navigation, and clear labeling will enable users achieve the most value from the available features as well as entice them to visit the dashboard more frequently.

User Flow : Happy Path

Prototype and Testing

Low-Fidelity Concept Sketches

I developed paper prototypes of my initial concept which I then tested among 5 users.
3/5 Tested users reported difficulty understanding the path to navigate through the dashboard.