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ELMO Custom Reporting Tool (CRT)

Empowering Users with Self-Service Custom Report Scheduling

Overview

Company
ELMO Software 

Role
Senior UX Designer

Platform
SaaS | Responsive

Date
2020

Key Contributions

  • Conducted stakeholder interviews
  • Performed quantitative (analytics) and qualitative (surveys, direct feedback) research
  • Executed data synthesis & sense-making
  • Conducted competitive analysis
  • Defined user journeys
  • Developed wireframes & visual designs
  • Created prototypes
  • Led usability testing

The Challenge

Within a short timeframe, I took the initiative to significantly enhance ELMO's Custom Reporting Tool (CRT). The existing Report Builder and Overview Dashboard experiences presented notable usability challenges, impacting user efficiency and satisfaction.

Research & Strategy

My research approach combined qualitative and quantitative methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of user pain points. I engaged directly with customers, gathered online survey responses, and conducted quantitative research using our analytics tool, Amplitude.

Synthesising feedback via Dovetail
Synthesising feedback via Dovetail
CRT quantitative research via Amplitude
CRT quantitative research via Amplitude

Through rigorous data synthesis and sense-making, I identified critical problems that could be addressed in the short term:

  • Users misunderstood ELMO's database structure.
  • Lack of a direct report comparison feature.
  • Common functions were either hidden or counterintuitive, increasing cognitive load.

Design

A new dashboard experience was created allowing customers to: view and compare multiple reportable widgets at once; resize, add and remove widgets; and create multiple dashboards.

elmo-custom-reporting-tool-overviews

I designed a new dashboard experience to address these issues, enabling customers to:

  • View and compare multiple reportable widgets simultaneously.
  • Resize, add, and remove widgets dynamically.
  • Create and manage multiple customized dashboards.

Concurrently, I overhauled the Report Builder's user interface, making it more informative with strategic use of information pop-ups and logical categorisation of datasets. Key functions were brought to the forefront and improved, significantly reducing the user's cognitive load and streamlining the report creation process.

Validate

The prototypes underwent guerrilla usability testing, yielding highly positive feedback. The designs were also showcased at our monthly business events and presented directly to visiting customers. The overwhelming response, epitomized by comments like, "We love the dashboard! When can we have it?", strongly validated the proposed improvements.

While this was a validated concept, the plan included further post-launch validation using Hotjar and Amplitude, underscoring the commitment to continuous improvement.

The Team

Senior Product Manager Asha Nair
Business Analyst Graham Crawford
Engineering Manager Ronan Whelan
Software Engineer Gillian Ng
Software Engineer Raymond Ho
Software Engineer Nicholas Maddalena
Software Engineer Sumit Banskota

Special Thanks

Senior UX Designer Verica Nikolic
UI Designer John Rattanachaya
Account Manager Greg Shandler

Other works

ELMO Design SystemLive Project

Sage ESSLive Project

Sage ESS TimesheetsValidated Concept

ELMO Report SchedulerValidated Concept

ELMO SurveyValidated Concept

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