The key to success in this project was securing stakeholder buy-in. To achieve this, we needed to align everyone on why our proposed design changes were worth the time and effort to implement.
With this in mind, our first step was a competitive audit: analyzing our dashboard alongside competitors’ dashboards and best-in-class examples to identify areas for improvement.
Using insights from the audit, we conducted several rounds of visual explorations. For this exercise, we reimagined four key pages from the Merchant Dashboard, selecting pages that represented a broad range of design elements and challenges while being essential to the overall experience. Our approach was guided by four simple polarities: “playful” vs. “serious” and “technical” vs. “human.”
We based the direction of our visual explorations on four simple polarities: “playful” vs. “serious” and “technical” vs. “human.”
With visuals in hand, it was time to test the waters by sharing our work with the Product team and other cross-functional stakeholders. Since securing stakeholder alignment was crucial, we incorporated light design education into our presentation to ensure everyone understood the impact of our proposed changes.
After outlining the project’s goals and scope, we walked through our competitive audit, which we organized into four key themes: visual hierarchy, readability, cohesion, and brand voice. For each theme, we explained its significance, highlighted areas of opportunity, and compared our current performance to that of our competitors.
The response was overwhelmingly positive. Marketing was excited to see more brand presence within the product, Product and Engineering recognized the value of the work and were eager to collaborate, and even our CEO was enthusiastic about the project’s potential.
Audit Details