Regular progress update
with qualitative context for better understanding of their strategy progress

Company

Cascade Strategy

Project type

Web application

Role

End-to-end product design

Overview

Cascade Strategy serves as a business strategy management/execution tool, providing functionalities that aid in the planning, execution, and monitoring of strategies.

Users define their strategies by setting objectives, success metrics, and action plans, and can consistently update their goal progress. We aim to enhance the user experience of execution, especially updating progress, making it more valuable and easily prompted.

Problems

  1. Limited Transparency and Visibility:
    The current challenge lies in the lack of transparency and visibility regarding the progress of goals.

  2. Customer Demand for Routine Progress Reports:
    We have received requests from customers seeking regular progress reports, specifically for their weekly or monthly meetings.

  3. Differentiating General Comments from Progress-Related Context:
    An issue has arisen where general comments are intertwined with comments intended to provide qualitative context for progress updates, leading to confusion.

Business
opportunities

Increase User Engagement and Retention:
By providing easier prompt for users to perform updates, the platform could experience higher engagement rates. Users would be more likely to actively participate in tracking their progress, leading to increased retention of the tool.

Understanding of Progress Reports

What is
progress report?

The purpose of a progress report is to inform stakeholders about the status of the goal, including what has been accomplished so far, what is currently being worked on, and what remains to be done. Progress reports can be written for a variety of audiences, including managers, clients, investors, or other stakeholders.

Objectives of
the progress report

in Cascade

  • Transparent and visibility
    : To provide stakeholders with an accurate and up-to-date understanding of how goals are advancing, fostering trust and informed decision-making.

  • Interaction and communication
    : Foster effective interaction and communication by streamlining feedback channels and ensuring clarity in discussions.

  • Goal evaluation and review
    : To provide a structured framework for assessing goal progress, identifying bottlenecks, and making adjustments as needed.

  • Insight for future planning
    :Generate meaningful insights from progress reports to inform future strategic planning. Extracting valuable can guide decision-making, helping organizations learn from past experiences and adjust their strategies accordingly.

Usability tests

To understand where exactly the users are struggling to complete their tasks, I conducted usability tests based on the insights of the interviews and analyze the reason of the problems.

Persona

Based on the interviews, two personas are identified.

Early/casual users

Role/position in an organisation

  • Individual contributors

  • Operators

  • Team managers

  • Executives

Proficiency in Cascade

  • Not familiar with what Cascade is capable

  • Users on 4 days free trial or Premium plan with limited features (less than 2 months after 14 days free trial)

  • Don’t have much data sources in Cascade yet

  • Might not be a tech savvy

User needs/behavior in the dashboard

  • Want to understand what the dashboard capable to figure out if Cascade is valuable to keep using

Power/migration users

Role/position in an organisation

  • Team managers

  • Executives

  • Data analysts

  • Risk managers

Proficiency in Cascade

  • Familiar with the dashboard features in the current generation, and expect better than that

  • Premium or Enterprise users who have been using Cascade for over 6 months

  • Have enough data sources in Cascade

User needs/behavior in the dashboard

  • Want to customize charts to have the best dashboard for their data visualization in multiple purposes

How might we allow users to easily understand how to create a new chart?

Solution directions

Discoverability

  • To deliver a clear understanding of the value they can derive from the dashboard

  • To empower users to have learning exercise by exploring the dashboard's functionalities and content

  • To allow users to make informed decisions about maximizing the value they extract from the dashboard

Streamlined Workflow

  • By minimizing unnecessary steps, reducing cognitive load, and eliminating friction points, a streamlined workflow empowers users to accomplish their tasks quickly and seamlessly

  • This promotes a sense of confidence and control, leading to greater user satisfaction and engagement, which can unlock higher user adoption rates

Clarity of Interaction

  • To deliver a tangible understanding of the cause-and-effect relationship between user's actions and the resulting changes

  • To allow users to easily rearrange, reposition, or dashboard layout while configuring data and chart types

  • To empower users to experiment, iterate, and fine-tune their interactions, leading to a deeper understanding of the system's capabilities and a sense of control and confidence to customize charts

Ideation/
User-flow/
Wireframe/
Pros and cons

Defining the main user flow and wireframes for visualizing the desired user experience and understanding the associated pros, cons, and technical constraints. This process allows the team for effective planning and consideration of factors that can impact the successful execution of the roadmap.

Implement
Strategy/

Scoping

After analyzing the pros and cons, taking into account factors such as technical limitations, user mutuality, adoptability, and product scalability, we have made the decision to prioritize the release of widget templates, followed by the custom chart builder, and hold the dashboard templates in this stage.

This strategic approach ensures a gradual and effective rollout of features based on their respective benefits and the overall roadmap objectives.

User journey

I created a user journey considering user needs and the availability of different data sources based on their stage in the onboarding/learning the product. By providing relevant and accessible data sources, we aim to ensure that users can quickly derive value from the dashboard and gradually progress towards becoming power users.

Final Design Solutions

Widget templates

The Widget library offers a variety of commonly used charts across industries. The new design guides users to easily find the desired chart through categorizing tabs on the left side, while providing a thumbnail and description for a clearer understanding of each chart's function and appearance.

The chart configuration process within the widget library can be completed with just a couple of clicks, as the chart type and data source are pre-configured for optimal use. Users can quickly add charts to their dashboard and discover the capabilities and value within the product.

I have prioritized design principles for data visualization considering accessibility during the chart design process. Each widget has been crafted to fulfill its specific purpose, ensuring that users can efficiently visualize and interpret the data.

Custom
chart builder

The custom chart builder occupies the entire screen, allowing users to view all the elements involved in configuring a chart without hidden elements. This comprehensive view helps users understand what to do for creating a chart at a glance.

Additionally, the UI incorporates clear indicators for active and inactive states, enabling users to quickly identify where to begin.

After selecting the data source as the first step, the input fields become active, allowing users to enter their data.

Depending on the chosen chart type and data source, the available configuration options for creating a chart vary. The user interface clearly indicates the active and disabled states of the Dimensions and Measures, providing instant visual feedback to users as they explore different chart types and data sources. This enables users to easily understand which options are applicable for their specific chart configuration.

The drag and drop interaction feature empowers users to explore and experiment with creating charts in an intuitive manner, enabling them to customize the data visualization to best suit their intentions. The visual cues of green and blue colors provide guidance on which elements correspond to specific attributes, facilitating a clear understanding of how each element and attribute interact with one another and impact the resulting data visualization. This visual feedback assists users in comprehending the relationship between different elements and attributes, enhancing their ability to create effective and visually appealing charts.

Impacts

Reducing the
bounce rate

(Amplitude)

Reducing the bounce rate from 42% to 22% indicates an improvement in user engagement and retention. This metric measures the percentage of users who initially accessed the widget library but did not complete the task of adding a chart. By reducing the abandonment rate, the new design has successfully encouraged more users to complete the chart creation process, resulting in lowered learning curve and increased user satisfaction.

Time savings

(Usability test)

The significant time savings achieved through the new design, reducing the task execution speed to create a new chart from 7-15 minutes to 1-2 minutes on widget template, demonstrate enhanced efficiency and usability. Users can now complete the task more quickly, leading to increased user satisfaction.

User satisfaction

(Interview)

With 100% of users who have experienced the previous version expressing that the new design is more intuitive and easier to use, user satisfaction is at its highest level. This positive feedback indicates that the new design has successfully addressed usability issues and provided a more user-friendly experience, resulting in improved user satisfaction and overall product perception.

And..

The team members are happy 😄
(Feedback in retro)

© 2024 Ariel Kim