Console
Dashboard that every shop owner aspires to have!
The goal was to help retailers manage operations effectively by providing a platform to monitor sales, track customer behavior, and manage inventory in real-time.
Company : retailcloud
Project Type
Dashboard Design
For webapp
Role
UX Generalist
UI Designer
Interaction Designer
Contribution
UX Research
UI/UX Design
High-fidelity Prototype
About the project.
The console dashboard provides insights into sales, inventory, and customer behavior. Our user-friendly interface ensures easy access to critical information, enabling data-driven decisions and improving sales processes, customer connections, and inventory management.
I’m excited to share this journey with you.
Why we did it?
We created a dashboard to revolutionize how businesses thrive in retail. The goal was to help retailers manage operations effectively. It provides a platform to monitor sales, track customer behavior, and manage inventory in real-time.
Empathize
During the empathize phase, I dived deep into the user's world. Through interviews, observations, and research, I gained an understanding of user needs, behaviors, and motivations. I asked "what" users did, "how" they interacted, and most importantly, "why" they made certain choices. This phase allowed me to step into users' shoes and uncover insights that shaped my design process.
Activities
Persona
Interview
Leading questions
Responses
Survey
Interview
To improve retail and business operations, I spoke with store owners like Emily and Mark. They shared insights on the importance of separate sales, inventory, and customer dashboards in their daily work. Our conversations revealed their practices, challenges, and aspirations. Key questions and responses are outlined below.
PERSONA
I crafted personas about store owners to design effective dashboards. These profiles synthesized real user traits, challenges, and goals. Derived from research, personas guided my design decisions and helped me connect empathetically.
Understanding the user persona of Emily and Mark helped me in designing the analytics solution that addresses their specific needs, provides actionable insights, and empowers them to make data-driven decisions for their store.
SURVEY
Creating a survey is a great approach to gather insights for designing an effective dashboard. Here's the survey and responses that I used to understand the difficulties and pain points of store owners in analyzing store data and making decisions.
What tools/methods do you use to analyze sales data?
50%
30%
20%
Spreadsheets
Pint of Sale system
Retail management software
How often do you review sales, customer, and inventory data?
40%
30%
20%
5%
5%
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Rarely
Never
How do you gather insights about customer preferences?
30%
25%
20%
25%
Customer feedback forms
Social media interactions
In-store interactions
Loyalty programs
What are your main challenges when analyzing sales data?
25%
35%
20%
20%
Data overload
Lack of clear insights
Time-consuming process
Difficulty in spotting trends
What data is crucial for making informed store decisions?
40%
25%
20%
15%
Sales trends
Customer preferences
Inventory levels
Profit margins
What pain points do you face in handling inventory tasks?
25%
30%
20%
25%
Overstocking
Stockouts
Inventory inaccuracies
Tedious data entry
Ideate
In the ideation phase, I brainstorm and generate creative ideas for solving problems. It's like a brainstorming session where I let my imagination run free. These ideas lay the foundation for the project, sparking innovation and guiding the design process.
Activities
Affinity diagram
User flow
Wireframe
I've developed a wireframe for a sales, customer, and inventory dashboard. This wireframe acts as the foundational structure for the dashboard's layout, illustrating how data is organized and presented. It serves as the initial step in designing a user-friendly interface for effective data management and navigation.
Activities
Information architecture
Low fidelity design
EMPATHY MAP
An empathy map is a key tool in my UX design toolkit. It organizes user insights into what they say, think, feels, and does, deepening my understanding of user personas. I created empathy maps of Emily and Mark to based on their persona to cultivates empathy and guide me in crafting user-focused solutions that truly meet their needs.
By understanding the store owner's perspective through these empathy maps, I was able to better tailor the analytics to address their specific needs and solve their pain points.
Mental model
This mental model depicts how Emily and Mark want their dashboard to streamline store operations, boost sales, and improve customer satisfaction, contributing to business success.
Goals
Efficient store management
Data-driven decisions
Inventory control
Enhanced customer engagement
Increased profitability
Components
User-friendly dashboard
Sales & inventory data
Customer insights
Financial overview
Customization options
Emotions & Satisfaction
Confidence
Informed decisions
Satisfaction
Empathy
Define
In the ideation phase, I brainstorm and generate creative ideas for solving problems. It's like a brainstorming session where I let my imagination run free. These ideas lay the foundation for the project, sparking innovation and guiding the design process.
Activities
Empathy map
Mental modal
Story board
Affinity diagram
I utilized an affinity diagram during collaborative brainstorming sessions. It helped me organize lots of ideas into groups that made sense. This made it easier for my team to find connections and come up with good ideas more easily.
User flow
I created user flows to visualize how users navigate through the dashboard to view the sales, customer, and inventory data easily. It helped me understand how users navigate through the platform to analyse each category of data.
Information architecture
I've created an Information Architecture like a map that shows how information is organized, making it easy for users to find what they need and understand the data. This structure is the foundation for a user-friendly dashboard.
Prototyping
I worked on high-fidelity designs, which involved creating polished and detailed prototypes that closely resembled the final product. These prototypes included realistic visuals, interactions, and functionality. This stage allowed for thorough testing and provided an accurate preview of the user experience, helping us make precise refinements.
High fidelity design
In designing a high-fidelity sales, customer, and inventory dashboard, I integrated date rage filters for enhanced usability and custom date filters namely "Current Week," "Previous Week," "Current Month," "Previous Month," "Current Year," and "Previous Year" for quick access. Users can easily pinpoint data by selecting the timeframe that suits their needs. The high-fidelity design ensures a polished, user-friendly interface, making data analysis a breeze, enhancing the user experience and providing clear, actionable insights for better decision-making.
Sales DASHBOARD
"The sales dashboard is my compass, my guiding light," explains Emily, owner of a home decor store. She underscores the importance of metrics such as total transactions, net sales, cost of goods sold (COGS), markup, and markdown. These metrics offer a comprehensive picture of her store's financial health, enabling her to optimize pricing strategies and identify profit-driving avenues.
Mark, the proprietor of a Boutique clothing store, adds, "The sales dashboard goes beyond figures; it's about understanding trends. Monitoring markup and markdown percentages helps me strike the balance between profitability and providing value to my customers."
Customer DASHBOARD
“Our success hinges on happy customers," emphasizes Lisa, manager of a high-end fashion boutique. The customer engagement dashboard is her tool for achieving just that. Metrics like total customers, new customers, retention rate, store rating, customer satisfaction (CSAT), and survey responses provide insights into customer sentiment and loyalty.
Tom, operating a sportswear store, adds, "The customer dashboard is my secret sauce. It helps me measure how effectively we're nurturing relationships. A high retention rate and positive CSAT are my ultimate goals."
Inventory DASHBOARD
Susan, managing a multi-brand clothing outlet, attests to the significance of the inventory management dashboard. "Days in stock, GMROI, and inventory-to-sales ratio are my ammunition," she says. These metrics empower her to maximize inventory turnover and profitability. Additionally, tracking e-commerce orders, open purchase orders, open transfers, and purchase orders pending approval ensures a streamlined supply chain.
85%
store owners found the dashboard useful as it effectively organized and structured vast amounts of data in a logical and intuitive manner.
80%
store owners found the dashboard helpful in visualizing complex data sets such as sales trends, customer behavior, and inventory levels, enabling them to grasp insights quickly.
95%
store owners found the dashboard provided relevant and context-aware actions for different data points, facilitating quick and efficient interactions and decision-making.
Key takeaways.
These key takeaways highlight the project's user-centric approach, its emphasis on addressing challenges, and the importance of involving users and cross-functional teams in the dashboard design process.
User-Centric Vision: The project focuses on empowering businesses with a user-centric dashboard for gaining insights into sales, inventory, and customer behavior.
Ease of Use: The dashboard prioritizes a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate interface, ensuring effortless access to critical information.
Data-Driven Decisions: The goal is to enable businesses to make data-driven decisions, transforming the way they manage sales, customer relationships, and inventory.
Centralized Platform: The dashboard offers a centralized platform to monitor sales performance, track customer behavior, and manage inventory levels in real-time.
Data Visualization Clarity: Effective data visualization is essential to provide clarity and insights into complex data sets, enhancing decision-making.
Thank you for reading!
Let’s work together!
Reach out to me at 📧 msmanusankar98@gmail.com
