Background

Forecast5 Analytics is a data analytics company with a suite of software that allows school districts to solve problems using data analysis. For some products within the suite, users have the ability to create their own dashboard with custom analytics.

The problem

The existing dashboard creation tool was confusing and difficult to use. Most clients did not use it, relying instead on advisors within the company to create dashboards for them. As the company increased its client base, continuing to create dashboards for all of them was not a sustainable practice. The tool needed to be improved so that clients would use it. Since it was a shared resource among the products, it needed to include features that would work for everyone.

Defining the Users

Personas included school administrators, financial officers, and school principals using three different products. What they had in common was the need to see or show information at a glance – for budget meetings, school board meetings, or their own daily/weekly analysis.

Dashboard Builder Redesign | Forecast5 Analytics

UX Designer [role]
Pen and paper, whiteboards, AxureRP [tools]

Design Process

I had not worked on a tool like this before, so I started with a competitive analysis, creating a matrix of features and determining which were available in each product, which were settings that could be turned on or changed, and which were the default settings. Our own tool fell short compared to the more popular tools on the market.

Comparison matrix

Armed with this information, I met with the stakeholders – the product owners/advisors and the head of development – and discussed pain points, client-requested features, advisor-requested features, and overall usability. Together, we brainstormed some solutions to the pain points, discussing features that could be built in a reasonable timeframe, as well as solutions that would work for all the products since there were differences in the users.

Whiteboard Preliminary layout

I met with the product owners and SMEs separately to discuss issues unique to their products, as well as what they had heard from clients when training them on dashboard creation. Based on these discussions, we thought providing templates and a wizard would encourage users to try the tool and then explore the more advanced features.

Heuristic example Wizard wireframe Template wireframe

After some initial wires and more discussion, it became clear that development leaders and the product owners were not in agreement with what the goal was. The CTO wanted to develop a tool that made it easier on advisors to create dashboards, since we knew clients weren’t currently using the tool. The product owners wanted a tool that would work for clients that advisors could also use when necessary. Ultimately, because the project relied on development resources, we resolved to create the tool initially for advisors, which meant moving away from a wizard and back into a more complex UI.

Create page iteration 2 Component page iteration 2 Settings page iteration 2

Several rounds of wireframes were produced and reviewed by the whole team for input. When introduced to development, there was additional discussion around features and what was feasible, and additional edits were made.

Many iterations Final design

Results

The dashboard builder redesign was initially launched with one product (5Maps) when that product was redesigned. Initial client feedback was positive and clients use has increased, especially after additional training. It will be added to the other products when their redesigns go live.