The Launch P.A.D.

Personnel Analytics Dashboard

User Research / End-to-End Design / User Validation
Client
United States Space Force
Company
KBR
Project Type
Web App Feature
Project Date
April 2023

Team Roster

UX Designer (myself)
Project Manager
Six Full-Stack Engineers

Project Summary

This was a new page in the application, dedicated to tracking several team metrics. Users can quickly ascertain team availability for future projects, know which members have been certified for specific positions, and get a detailed project assignment history.

The Challenge

The interviewee, a team leader, expressed a need to be able to see team availability at all times. It was important to know who had received certifications for specific positions, as this would be helpful in building the team for the next project. Lastly, the user needed to know who was involved in previous projects and in what position. That way, the team leader can make sure all team members are shuffled around and gain experience in all positions, leading to a more well-rounded team. At the time, they were able to gather all this information from a variety of different sources. This was achievable, but also time-consuming and often unreliable.

The Process

I organized and conducted Discovery & Framing interviews with the crew scheduling team of our client. After extracting interview results, I drafted some low-fidelity pen and paper sketches and passed them along to the interview participants for concept confirmation. Upon approval, I moved my concepts into Figma and began the high-fidelity prototypes, again, sending along the finished concepts for confirmation. The users being happy with our progress, meant the designs were now ready for development.

Working in an agile environment, we utilize several methods to ensure quality and efficiency in the process. The Project Manager, the Anchor Developer, and myself meet in a Pre-Iterated Planning Meeting (IPM) to discuss the intended functionality and approach for the build of the feature. After that, we have an IPM with the full project team and prioritize the development.

Once development is completed, the story is pushed to our staging site, where I can now conduct usability testing to catch any bugs and get user validation.

The Solution

Addressing each of the user needs, led me to the conceptual idea of a personnel dashboard, showcasing a table or graph of each necessary requirement. My goal was to present an intuitive and quickly absorbable UI for users to quickly ascertain crew scheduling needs.
The first section the user sees is the Personnel Pool graph. This line graph quickly tells the user how many of each team members is available for the current month. Team members assigned to a project or are otherwise unavailable will be subtracted from the total available members with the position. They can see this information day-by-day & role-by-role, granting full situational awareness of crew availability.
A catalog view of healthcare data.
Each of these graphs or tables provides quick value at a glance. Project leaders and/or crew schedulers can find out who has been certified in which position and also, who has the most experience with specific projects and can be deemed advisors on future projects. This removes the guesswork and affords greater awareness of the entire team's skill level and will lead the user to build a stronger balanced team.

The Results

The feature was well received by users. They commended the ability to have great situational awareness of their team at any point in time. Users mentioned how this feature saves precious man-hours and makes scheduling much easier.
"This is gonna be very helpful. Currently, we have to create fake crews, just to be able to know availability. With the Personnel Pool, we're going to save a lot of time."

Lessons/Wins

This was the first metrics dashboard I’ve ever designed. I delved into the world graphs and data visualizations to come up with the appropriate visual for each specific user need. Gathering all the user research, which, in addition to the initial interviews, required several back and forth emails and zoom meetings, it was challenging to bring it all together. It was a great project and I’m proud of the work accomplished.
Questions about this project? Drop me a line.
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