eCommerce BI Database Interface

Redesign an existing 13-year-old database interface that serves database system engineers, developers, programmers, and business users for a Fortune 50 e-commerce company.

 

My process is to research the throughput analytics for the site over a month, by user type. Then interview the immediately available development team members, support database administrators, Admins, then poll and interview business users. 

The main request was for a color background due to users working at night. Requested that users have the ability to personalize and change the interface to each person's own preferences.  Many of the features of the interface we were not permitted to change. However, we did convince the managers to allow slight updates to the UI. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

They did not want a white site or a light-colored site due to working at night.

 

We created an initial program identity to promote and advertise the update within the company. We used the product identity to internally advertise the new update.

Users, that is people, don't like enforced change, but when they have input into the UX design process, they have an investment in the results. As a result, people become more eager to work with the new interface and provide feedback.

When the change process is iterative it provides people the opportunity to grow accustomed to the changes, and give useful feedback into the design. As in this case the team provided immediate feedback into the design which we did laterally across all pages depending on what their existing relationships were.

​

One of the most fascinating experiences was through spending time with the development team they explained that there were several colorblind team members. After analysis, the discovery was that there are far more color-blind people using the products daily, even those who were able to see only black gray and white only, no color vision, working on the database than for an average population of software users.  With this information the UI of the design focused on shapes to indicate status in forms.

 

Color itself is a sensitive topic. Having the liberty to change individual preferences is the only solution. Starting out with a plain background and refining the content of forms the design would include setting preferences. Template choices offered so people may select from a predesigned set or create their own personalized display settings for backgrounds, typefaces, menus, and all the UI elements.

But how could this carry over into the product itself?
For example, it could improve to offer one-click onboarding of any size of business entity, even countries. That global of an update wasn't something that comes with a button labeled "Onboard All the Businesses in Italy or Africa". What other ways can a product work well for color blind or other types of visually disabled people? What kind of optics can give color blind people a boost visually? and does adding sound to an environment help people? To what degree?