IBM
EPM Dashboard Catalog
Role
Lead Designer,
Product Owner
Length of project
2 years
A catalog of ready-to-use dashboards that makes it easier for non-technical users to find and use the data they need to run their business.
Skills
Design Leadership, Project Management, User Research, UX, UI, Competitive Analysis, Defining KPIs
Team
8 Junior Designers
9 Developers
4 Content SMEs
1 User Researcher
Impact
Demoed weekly to C-suite Executives at Fortune 100/500/5000 companies
+300% monthly active users y/y
+700% self-serve dashboards since launch
+23pt NPS for catalog users compared to non-users
Executive nomination, IBM Outstanding Innovation Award
Peer-nominated Culture Catalyst Cash Award
“This is a game changer. This will go a long way to removing the barrier to adoption.”
–Joanne Wright, IBM Chief Operations Officer
Context
My team
Our Enterprise Data team plays a crucial role in facilitating the adoption of our integrated data platform, EPM, across all business units in IBM.
What’s EPM?
EPM is an integrated data platform. It enables IBMers to seamlessly access trusted data, construct dashboards, and generate reports tailored to their specific needs.
Defining
the problem
↪ It’s really difficult and time consuming to go from a blank slate to a fully functioning dashboard like this one.
Users want existing dashboards
Users struggle to build dashboards on their own and they specifically want ready-to-use dashboards. The typical business user doesn’t have the time or technical skill to build a dashboard on their own.
Why weren’t current solutions working?
Redundant sites that don’t really solve the problem —
In our research, we found dozens of websites performing similar functions, resulting in wasted resources, duplicative efforts, and negative user feedback.Ability to share and maintain content was neglected —
Most solutions were focused on users finding dashboards, but didn’t pay attention to the experience of sharing and maintaining the content. This led to stale information and broken links.
Learning how to build a successful solution
Research
Interviewing users — I conducted user interviews with over 20 users to understand how they search for dashboards.
Interviewing owners of existing solutions — A lot of smart people have tried to solve this problem before. I needed to know what went well, and what didn’t to avoid making the same mistakes.
I performed an audit of existing solutions, and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses.
Secondary research — I audited 5-6 existing internal solutions as well as external tools like Adobe Stock which solves a similar problem by creating a library of reusable assets to speed up work in tools like Photoshop and Illustrator.
I evaluated how external products like Adobe Stock had solved a similar problem.
Defining
success
Securing resources
After evaluating why the other solutions didn’t work, I partnered with leadership, SMEs, and Client Success, to define our criteria for success.
This project would not be a success unless we accomplished the following for each user type:
1.
New users can
find dashboards
2.
Experienced users can share existing dashboards
After pitching the idea to the Chief Data Officer, I successfully secured design and development resources to build the new solution.
8 junior Designers
9 Developers
3.
Our EPM team can
maintain the content
4 dashboard SMEs
1 User Researcher
Solution
One intentionally designed, scalable solution.
1.
New users can
find dashboards
Key features
Simple search experience — like a great shopping experience, users can search and filter using familiar conventions.
Easily save favorites — users can create their own custom list of relevant dashboards using the favorite feature.
No more broken links — our development team wrote code that fixes any broken path reference links. This is a significant differentiator from previous solutions.
2.
Experienced users can share dashboards
Key features
Fill out a form in less than 3 minutes — the form has familiar descriptors that correlate to the filters. Users can include links to education, demos, or other supplementary content in the description if they choose.
Share links to specific entries — instead of sharing a breakable path reference link directly to the EPM dashboard, experienced users can share a link to their entry. This ensures the link never breaks.
IBM-wide availability — users from anywhere in the company can find their great dashboard without significant communication efforts from the owner.
3.
EPM team can
maintain content
Key features
Quality Content Committee — all content is reviewed by a group of dashboard experts and product managers before publishing. The committee rates each dashboard for User Experience, Relevance, and Performance then shares feedback with the owner.
Prevent stale content — if content has not been updated in 6 months, it’s automatically flagged for review. This ensures all content remains “fresh” and in good working order.
A new user can search, filter, and easily save their favorites.
An owner submits their dashboard to the catalog. After submitting, the dashboard is reviewed by the Quality Content Committee before being published.
An admin reviews and publishes a new submission. Admins can edit any published dashboard.
Impact
C-suite Executive Client demos
Demoed weekly to Fortune 100/500/5000 companies
+300%
monthly active users year over year.
Executive nomination
Nominated by Chief Data Officer and Chief Operations Officer for IBM Outstanding Innovation Award 2023
+700%
increase in self-serve dashboard content since launch.
Recipient,
Peer-nominated
Nominated by my development lead for IBM’s Culture Catalyst Award 2023. Award is given to leaders who exhibit excellent cross-discipline collaboration.
+23pt
higher NPS for users who use the Dashboard Catalog compared to non-catalog users.
Feedback
“Caroline, I would like to personally thank you for your leadership in the Dashboard Catalog initiative. From idealization, to planning, to design, to execution, you have been awesome. Thank you for driving a very important solution to make EPM successful and to make our clients successful.”
—AI Development leader
“I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere appreciation for you. Your guidance, support, and commitment to excellence have made a significant impact on the team and the overall success of the Dashboard Catalog project. Your ability to navigate challenges with grace and determination has been truly inspiring. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to work with you, and I look forward to continuing to work together to achieve even greater milestones. You always rock!!!”
—Development partner
“You have always been easy to reach, quick in response and wonderful to collaborate.”
—Development partner
“That’s very good”
—Jim Kavanaugh, Chief Financial Officer IBM
“It is absolutely making a difference in helping IBMers to find and explore data-driven insight.”
—Chief Data Officer IBM
“The Dashboard Catalog, took us leaps and bounds with trying to centralize thoughtful, high quality dashboards and Reports”
—Senior Product Manager
“Caroline has been a great Collaborator, she is largely responsible for leading the design of the Dashboard Catalog, Her extensive knowledge on carbon components and design helped in enhancing User experience UX and User Interface UI. Caroline not only brought great ideas to the table, she has good listening skills and was always open to suggestions, feedback and ideas from all the team members. Her continuous support and collaboration with the development team helped in seamless delivery and improved Productivity.”
—Development Leader, Nomination for Culture Catalyst Cash Award
“Trying to find content was daunting, and quite honestly a deterrent. I love this catalog concept, it 100% addresses the user experience to encourage use. Spread the word! Great work Caroline and team!!”
—EPM User
“Thank you, Caroline, for the excellent partnership with the dev team and keeping us on track — a maniacally focused manner”
—Distinguished Engineer, CTO & Chief Architect, IBM Enterprise Data
Current responsibilities
Ensure steady growth of catalog
Product owner and lead designer for the site
Collecting feedback and planning monthly sprints with the Development team manager
Coaching, mentoring, and delegating design tasks to junior designers
Present site metrics on a monthly basis to the Chief Data Officer and his leadership team and provide suggested actions based on current priorities to improve adoption.
Ongoing improvement: improve “Favorite” feature
As we’ve grown the number of dashboards available in the catalog, it’s more important than ever for users to create curated lists of their favorite dashboards.
We are testing a new design that makes the “Favorite” feature more prominent by placing an interactive icon on the main card. We predict this simple change will increase usage of this feature tremendously.
Lessons learned
1.
Lead with an owner mindset
As a product owner, responsibility extends beyond my role as a designer. It requires coordinating multiple teams and stakeholders, rolling up your sleeves when something goes wrong, and ensuring everyone has the same definition for success.
3.
For some, embracing change can be difficult
Shifting from legacy solutions requires diligence, patience, and relationship-building with legacy site owners and stakeholders.
2.
Content is king
Getting great content is vital for a successful dashboard catalog. This requires tight collaboration with Product Managers, Visualization Experts, and power users.
4.
Developing junior designers is rewarding
Mentoring means providing opportunities for junior designers to contribute their ideas, fostering their growth and pride in accomplishments.