Decision-Support Platform
Creative Direction // System Design // Process Design
Web App Design

Decision-Support Platform

Creative Direction // System Design // Process Design

Funded by the US Air Force, the platform enables users to create a visual matrix for the most critical aspects of development and commercialization. Using the power of AI, users can quickly identify weaknesses or improvement opportunities based on prior acquisition cycles, making this software one of the most robust decision-support platforms for the Department of Defense.

The Challenge

With old technology and processes, it's challenging to make considerable improvements to the overall lifecycle of a program. Our challenge was to identify new improvement opportunities, increase collaboration between teams, accelerate the development process, and identify and reduce risks across all projects.

Creating dashboard views based on custom profiles, allowing specific user types to identify emerging insights based on their needs.

The Process

Working alongside the lead product specialist, we had to make sure that we aligned business objectives to the assumed user goals. This is critical when designing solutions that advocate for improving processes.

During the discovery phase, there's three main areas we need to focus on:

01 - Personas
02 - Journey Mapping
03 - Feature Prioritization

01 - Personas

We organized a discovery session involving the key project stakeholders, including deputy program managers, independent advisors, industry developers, and analysts. These sessions help outline and define the use cases we needed to help frame the problem. Once we've collected that data, we create personas that generalize that information and place it into a palatable format for everyone to view. I put together two different styles to represent that data for this project; an advanced, personalized view specific to the team members' experiences and quick-glance card styles that make it easy to bring up when walking through features.

Personas continued

Simplifying the persona makes it easier to scan key insights when discussing them with other team members. We eventually created card styles that could be handed out to everyone in person and brought up on an iPad for in-person presentations.

02 - Journey Mapping

After collecting insights for each primary role within the application, we build workflow scenarios to map each user's journey. This practice allows us to create an effective mechanism for telling their story while shedding light on issues not typically identified in people's day-to-day work. Taking this inside-out approach lets us internalize each touchpoint and what tension may need to be resolved. This approach also allows the business to internalize the issues they might be having and refocus their initiatives on what needs to change.

03 - Feature Prioritization

By reframing the user goals to reflect the insights we've gathered from the discovery sessions, we're then able to identify feature sets and task flows that match the expectations of the business. We used three defining principles to measure the design solutions effectiveness to help prioritize the features even further:

Usability — Is it easy to complete the task at hand?
Usefulness — How valuable is the data that's being presented?
Delight — Is the experience functional, reliable, personalized?

Isolated Project Views

In the samples below, you'll get a peek into some of the UX/UI work for this project. Since this work is under a sensitive contract, much of the contextual information surrounding the UI has been removed and only highlights the feature or problem that was solved with design.

Scoring View

Once an evaluator places a score on an industry response, the team needs to review that evaluation before making a final decision. This view shows a visual representation of these scores and a peek into the review process UI for end-users.

Feature — Collaboration

The platform enables users to create customized groups and teams to collaborate on specific topics. With the guidance of AI-based recommendations, the team will identify and evaluate potential solutions throughout a conversation thread dedicated to a particular type of problem. Once they feel that there is a viable solution, they can then carry this thread over into the solution discovery phase of the platform to tailor the requirements and priorities that are necessary.

Widget — Work Bases

As part of our study to identify pathways for each user base, we created post-login work bases to help team members jump into the right areas. These bases are accessible from anywhere inside the application — when "creating new" or adding a custom widget on your dashboard — we made it easy to access the forms, data, and activities they need to run.

Widget — Card Flyouts

By creating "insights," we can quickly capture information without taking up too much screen real estate. These widgets fall on the right-hand side of the screen and allow team members to quickly identify critical information at a glance while also allowing them to take notes, gather data, and submit responses.