Selected Designs
Following in-depth heuristic analyses of the customer-facing software, several pervasive issues became readily apparent. If using the NNG Usability Heuristics as a rubric, the biggest offenders would correspond with “Recognition rather than recall” and “Aesthetic and minimalist design”.
Corresponding with the former, I discovered that nearly everything, from the website, to the internal and external applications were inundated in text, almost exclusively. Unless you’re extremely adept at recognizing and remembering the placement of text at a glance, this is a significant obstacle to the quick and efficient use of your applications. This logically leads into the latter heuristic criteria concerning aesthetics. Both were improved notably by the inclusion of colors, icons, animations and other interactive elements.
Included below are samples of my designs from selected products and features.
The inclusion of breadcrumbs, a global navigation, notifications, and a settings menu allowed for ease of access, as well as clearly recognizable alerts when tasks are completed. Because certain actions involved significant waiting periods, keeping the users apprised of the status was important on an extended timetable.
Iconography and color take the place of plain text to visually distinguish sections and their purposes at a glance. Animations smooth the transition and present a less jarring shift when dealing with large amounts of information. Ideally, it affords the opportunity for recall rather than memorize.
Because submitting a request can take a long time to show results, users' actions should be made clear to them before they are executed. Clear and concise messaging was critical to the successful completion of tasks.
Displayed in the previous visual design is an example of a bar graph used to simulate the projected results for the user. They are able to adjust parameters and view possible scenarios before committing to a specific job.
In accordance with NDAs and with respect to proprietary information from clients, research methodology and results have been omitted.
