Concept 3 - Management Dashboard

The initial plan for the management was to use visual infographics on a mobile interface for managing all aspects of a business. However, we realised that business owners were passionate about their jobs, and this meant they are willing to sit down and spend some time on particular tasks. Because of this, we decided to expand to a desktop dashboard concept.

We experimented with layouts and hierarchy. Some elements would be essential. Similar to Paypal, we wanted a place to provide management with a general overview of their money flow, and any urgent messages and communication with both staff and clients. We knew that certain elements would be more desirable to managers than others. However, until we got the prototype out and tested, the actual desired content on the homepage could only be presumed. Because of this uncertainty, we decided to add a personalised shortcut section, which we turned into a unique selling point of the management dashboard. Users could see exactly what their most used tasks were, and customise their experience to quicken up their process. If Andrew found he was updating staff profiles, a quick link to Edit Staff or Add/Remove a Staff Member would be suggested.

The initial concept incorporated some features we wanted to really emphasise to the client, other than our main selling point of personalised experiences through smart shortcuts. We would offer full control of a small business in a clean and constrained space, with personalised features to offer a familiar experience

Communication was a huge factor positive, with a whole area to compile both private messages and communal announcements. Because of this, we experimented with different layouts for a home page that would enhance communication for managers. We preferred the inbox scrollable container rather than a button taking you to another page, allowing for a preview to each individual message. We thought a drop down box could refine the content. For example, you could only show client messages, or only employee messages for example.

Money has a priority too, especially on the home screen. This is in order to compete with full package services we researched early on in the process, which were very powerful in terms of money management.

With this initial concept, we tried a new colour scheme, inspired by a lot of visual research on Pinterest for example. The colour usage actually resulted in quite a dull overall visual, however this choice of making each concept slightly different was useful to see which designs were more accessible than others.

The consistency of interactions was poor, and this was down to a loose house style with no restrictions of colour, format and typography. Links are difficult to find, and interactions are not as noticable as they need to be, especially for Andrew since he isn't very comfortable with new and complex systems. We knew we had to adjust this.

#LOBBAN