In accordance with my confidentiality agreement, I have excluded and adapted private information. These creations represent a reinterpretation of the original.
Overview
Allow me walk you through Diberr, a platform used to help organizations manage their people, processes, and projects. It was also designed to simplify task management so that team leader and members can collaborate easily.
Background
Imagine yourself as a founder of a well-known startup that has been growing exponentially in recent months. Unfortunately, your company is struggling to cope with the fast-paced and unpredictable nature of today’s business environment. Users within your organization face difficulties in managing projects, people, and operations effectively, which is preventing them from reaching their goals.
The main challenges your company faces include:
Lack of visibility: There is no way to predict whether the actions taken will go as planned or yield the
desired business outcomes.
Responsibility confusion: There is confusion about who is responsible for what, and tracking actions and performance is inefficient.
Absence of due process: There are no established procedures for tracking actions, performance, and reporting execution.
Finding a solution to these issues offers a chance to help your organization boost productivity, work more efficiently, and meet its strategic goals despite the ever-changing business landscape. Overcoming these challenges is essential for your business to stand out, improve its operations, and succeed in the long term.
Exploring the problem
To really understand the needs of our users, we started by gathering detailed information from stakeholders. We talked directly to team leads and employees to hear about their goals, challenges, and what they needed from a management tool.
This hands-on approach was crucial because it helped us get a clear picture of their real needs were rather than making assumptions. After these interviews, we reviewed our notes and recordings, pulling out the most important points. We wrote these key points on sticky notes and grouped similar ideas together on a Miro board, which helped us see common themes and priorities.
Key takeaways from stakeholder interviews & research
During the process, several key points stood out based on the information gathered from the stakeholders interview:
Integration of Core Functionalities
We need to combine project management, process management, and people management into one easy-to-use platform. This way, everything users need to manage their work, team, and projects is in one place. It should also have a feedback system where managers can rate and review work, helping the team improve and stay accountable.
Project Management
For managing projects, we should help users track how projects are going in different parts of the organisation, making it easy to see and compare progress. It should also make sure that the project goals match the company’s overall goals, so the team members can clearly see how the projects fit into the big picture.
Process Management
In terms of managing processes, the tool should provide templates for repetitive tasks , helping to keep things consistent. This will also help with daily task management, making routine work smoother and more efficient.
People Management
The platform should include ways to measure how well individuals and teams are performing, giving useful insights to help the team improve. It should also have features that make it easier for communication, file sharing, and planned projects.
User Experience and Design
The application must be user-friendly and easy to navigate, minimizing the learning curve and encouraging widespread adoption. An engaging interface is crucial to keep users motivated and involved in their tasks.
During the process, one challenge we faced was the uncertainty about the market we were getting into. Since the one of the goals was to have a world standard tool we decided to take a look at some leading platforms and this led to the comparative analysis of two platforms. Monday.com and Airtable. By studying these well-regarded platforms, we could pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses and find gaps that our product could fill. This analysis showed us how existing solutions managed work and collaboration, and gave us ideas on how to offer unique value to our users.
Key takeaways from competitor research
Finding the right balance between aesthetics and functionality is key in designing a successful work management tool. Monday.com impresses with its appealing design, Airtable is really flexible, but it's also important to make sure they're easy to use and can be changed to fit different needs.
Both platforms help users work together better and make things easier, but Airtable might be harder for new users. Knowing what users want will help create a tool that's both aesthetically appealing and easy to use, making everyone pleased.
Initial ideas
The team had a brainstorming session where we came up with some initial ideas.
Some of these include:
Modular design
In the beginning we thought of going through a modular design method, in this scenario, users can pick
and choose the features they needed based on their specific requirements.
Although this approach allows flexibility for users, has the potential to cater to a broad audience, and scalable.
However, we found out that it would be quite complex to deliver in terms of development.
Since the development team was lean, it was important that we also put into consideration the “man power” we had available.
Gamification
Another idea we considered was introducing gamification elements such as rewards, badges, and leaderboards to motivate users and increase engagement. But somewhere along the line we had to let go of this approach because, it might not appeal to our user demographics, could cause a distraction from the core functionalities, making it challenging to balance fun with professionalism.
Direction
We decided to go with an all in one work management tool because it offers a smooth and easy-to-use experience. By combining project, process, and people management in one place, users can easily move between tasks, check progress, and manage teams without switching tools.
This idea meets the stakeholders' need for a complete application and makes the platform simpler and more attractive for users.
Solution
We worked hard to make a tool that helps teams perform their best, leading to real growth. It wasn’t easy because we wanted to include lots of important things. We decide to include some features that will stand out meeting the business goals and the users needs.
Wireframes
Creative the tools was "no walk in the park" as we sought to consolidate objective management, people management, business process development, performance management and strategy development.
Presently, this differs from most work management softwares.
Creating the Design System
In this project, it was essential to create a design system in order to maintain consistency and a smooth handover to the development team. We developed a design system based on the components and their states. It's important to create UI design patterns that users can recognise.
Journey to the UI path
Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat. Nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum. Architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.