Case study: Wellness Program Dashboard

The workplace wellness program's user dashboard has gone through many iterations. I was not part of the product team during the rushed early iterations. Below, I describe how I became involved in the most recent dashboard redesign and was able to advocate for clearer content flow and copy.

Help copy that didn't seem too helpful - or findable

I was asked by a project manager to "fix up" some copy (below), a description of the program's gamification layer, originally written by the product lead (our CEO).

Upon first read I knew that this copy would need lots of revision for concision and to create focus on the user's main need - to learn how to earn points and to level up. 

I requested to see the copy's home in the UI. The project manager led me through a series of clicks to find this copy - a process that boggled my mind and made me feel immediately lost, even as an experienced "user" of this application.

The path to this copy

1. Click a text link DETAILS beneath a user's "Level" display on the dashboard.

2. A new page opened (no screenshots available) that had no navigation back to the dashboard. The only way back was the browser's back button. 

3. On that page was a button labeled RULES. Clicking this button opened the modal window below. The modal window (below, left) included two buttons - RULES and LEVEL (sic). You then toggle between the two views.

I provided a revision draft (above, right - as it appeared in a pre-QA UI) to the project manager who then sent the revision to the CEO to approve my changes. The CEO did not approve all of my revisions and added back in some of the marketing message I felt was off-topic and distracting to the user's primary task. The feature shipped with this copy and design. 

Another redesign, another chance to shape the content 

After the process above, I asked to be involved as early as possible in changes to any components of the product, advocating for the importance of content quality and  structure. When the next dashboard redesign started up, I had a chance to further revise the content (without intervention of the CEO). I also took a stronger role to shape the information structure and flow. 

The first redesign mockups repurposed the DETAILS link (below) to open a modal window in which a user sees the achievements needed to level up.

This design also used a slightly-tweaked version of the existing design and copy, integrating the Rules and Levels (below, right) and removing at least one or two clicks in the UI. This design also added a BACK TO DASHBOARD button (below, left) to solve the navigation issue between dashboard hub and this details page. 

I wasn't satisfied that this was the best approach. The information that needs to be conveyed falls into two general categories - 1.) user's data/progress and 2.) information about the program's gamification elements. This approach still combined and mixed the two in ways that confused me and might confuse end users.

I presented an alternative in which the two categories of information were presented in ways that made more sense to a user's expectations. The resulting design moved all of the user's data back together onto one page - ACHIEVEMENTS (below, top) - and the information about the program's gamification elements moved to the page HOW TO LEVEL UP (below, bottom).

My aim with these most recent changes was to clarify the user's path through the dashboard information. The How to Level Up page will also become a pilot page for the Help section to be created in the future.