Project Pulse
A role-based real-time dashboard that replaces fragmented spreadsheet reporting for project managers and executives.
Enterprise SaaS
Process Intelligence
Type
Lead UX Designer (Solo)
Scope
Jan – Aug 2024
Platform
Me · 1 PM · Stakeholder review
Domain
Enterprise Web Dashboard
Overview
Show the right person the right signal at the right moment.
Project Pulse is an enterprise project health dashboard designed for two distinct user types who share one data layer project managers who need granular sprint visibility and executives who need a 30-second portfolio scan. The challenge was never the data. It was making fragmented, multi-source project information legible, trustworthy, and role-appropriate in a single platform.
Concept case study inspired by real enterprise reporting challenges. Research, personas, and testing conducted independently. Client details available privately on request.
Industry | Enterprise SaaS |
|---|---|
My Role | Lead UX Designer · Solo end-to-end: research to handoff |
Team | Me · 1 PM · Stakeholder review |
Platform | Web Desktop · Enterprise Dashboard |
Methods | Research · IA · Flows · Prototype · Testing |
Tools | Figma · FigJam · Maze · Notion |
Duration | Jan – Jun 2024 · 6 months |
The solution unified two distinct user mental models one for operational depth (PMs), one for strategic overview (Executives) into a single shared data layer.
The Problem
Fragmented tools, fragmented decisions.
Organisations were spending 45+ minutes per week manually compiling project health reports pulling data from spreadsheets, Jira, and email threads with no single source of truth.
Three compounding problems
Data fragmentation - Project managers pulled data from Excel, Asana, Jira, and Trello separately creating error-prone, time-consuming reports every week.
One-size-fits-all views - Executives were forced to wade through granular task data to find high-level status. Project managers lacked the operational drill-down they needed.
No real-time visibility - Reports were always stale. By the time data was compiled and shared, decisions were already delayed sometimes by days.
How might we give project managers real-time operational clarity and executives a 30-second portfolio health scan from a single platform?
Objectives & Goals
Three measurable targets defined before design began.
Before a single screen was drawn, I defined three success criteria upfront so every design decision could be evaluated against a real outcome, not a feeling.
Goal | Baseline | Target |
|---|---|---|
01 · Speed - Report generation time | 45 min/week | <10 minutes |
02 · Usability - SUS score | 58 (Poor) | 75+ (Good) |
03 · Efficiency - Steps to flag a blocker | 7 steps | <4 steps |
Role-based dashboards are standard in tools like Jira and Power BI but no existing tool combined executive portfolio scanning with PM-level operational depth in one platform. That gap was the design opportunity.
Research
Understanding the users before drawing a single screen.
Before designing anything, I mapped the real workflow not the idealised version. The goal was to understand where decisions were being made badly, not just which features were missing.
Research methods
Stakeholder interviews - 5 discovery sessions with project managers and senior executives. Each session 60–75 minutes, focused on current reporting workflows, pain points, and decision-making habits. Sessions surfaced specific behavioural patterns not just stated preferences.
Card sort (n=8) - Open card sort to understand how each role mentally organises project information. Executives grouped by outcome and strategic status. PMs grouped by workflow and task state. One IA cannot serve both mental models - this was validated with 78% findability when two role-specific navigation skins were tested.
Competitive audit - Evaluated Jira, Asana, Monday.com, and Power BI against the same lens: how well does each tool serve executive overview vs. PM operational depth? None combined both. That gap defined the design brief.
Key findings
Finding 01 - PMs are doing data reconciliation, not decision-making. Every planning cycle required manually cross-referencing 4+ systems. The PM wasn't making judgment calls they were assembling raw data before they could even start.
Finding 02 - Executives don't trust the dashboard. 4 out of 5 executives interviewed reported calling the PM directly to verify dashboard data before acting on it. Trust was broken not by bad data, but by no visible proof that data was current.
Finding 03 - Triage is the first job, detail is the second. PMs consistently wanted to see blockers and at-risk items first not a full flat list of all tasks. The current tools buried the urgent in the routine.
Finding 04 - Colour alone fails 3 in 8 users. 3 of 8 participants had some degree of colour-blindness. Red/green status systems that relied purely on colour were inaccessible. All status needed to pair colour with a text label.
"I spend more time making the report than actually managing the project."
— Project Manager, stakeholder interview
Define
User personas
Two distinct roles use Project Pulse in fundamentally different ways at different times, with different needs. Designing for both meant fitting one system to two moments of use.
Problem statement
Project managers and executives need a way to access real-time project health data — satisfying role-specific levels of detail because the current process of manually compiling reports from fragmented tools is too slow, too error-prone, and too disconnected from how each role actually makes decisions.
How might we…
HMW 01 - How might we give executives a portfolio health scan in under 30 seconds without hiding the operational detail PMs need?
HMW 02 - How might we make the dashboard trustworthy enough that executives stop calling PMs to verify data?
HMW 03 - How might we surface blockers to PMs before they escalate without adding steps to their existing workflow?
HMW 04 - How might we communicate project status to users with colour-blindness without relying on colour alone?
HMW 05 - How might we design one shared data layer that serves two completely different mental models simultaneously?
Information Architecture
7 primary modules. 2 global overlays. One shared data layer.
The navigation was organised around what each role needs to find not around the data structure underneath. Every module maps directly to a delivered screen.
Design principles
Surface critical first, hide detail behind disclosure -The executive sees portfolio health in 30 seconds. The PM sees sprint blockers in under 4 steps. No role should have to search for the thing they need most.
Colour + text, never colour alone - Every status signal uses both a semantic colour and a text label. Accessible by design, not by afterthought.
One data layer, two skins - The same data powers both role views. Executives see aggregated portfolio signals. PMs see operational task detail. The same truth, shown appropriately for each moment of use.
Trust is earned through freshness - A persistent data freshness indicator "Last updated 2 minutes ago · All sources connected" - was a direct response to the trust gap finding. Visible currency of data removes the need for verification calls.
Design Decisions
7 improvements grounded in research.
Every decision traces back to a specific research insight and is visible in the final screens. No decoration each improvement either reduces steps, saves time, or removes a cognitive barrier.
Style Guide
Project Pulse design system - built to scale.
A restrained enterprise design language semantic colour, Inter typography, and a component library built around real data states, not decorative patterns.
High-fidelity Screens
36 screens across 7 modules two role-based interfaces, one shared data layer.
Every screen maintains the unified design system: orange (#F96C4D) for actions and high priority, blue (#3573F9) for secondary and in-progress states, semantic status colours (red/amber/green) for priority and task state throughout.
The 36-screen set covers: Dashboard · Inbox · Team · Project · Time Tracking · Document · Calendar with full state variations, dark mode, and responsive breakpoints.
View the complete High-Fidelity Screens in Figma →
Before & After
Not what was built what changed, and why it mattered.
Before Project Pulse
PMs spent 45+ min/week manually compiling reports from 4+ disconnected tools
Executives called PMs directly to verify dashboard data 4 out of 5 every week
No visual hierarchy all projects looked identical regardless of health or urgency
Status conveyed by colour alone inaccessible for 3 in 8 users
7 steps to flag a blocker from any screen
After Project Pulse
Report generation reduced from 45 min to 8 min automated, one-click
Data freshness indicator eliminated the trust gap executive verification calls dropped from 4/5 to 1/5
Semantic colour + text labels on every status badge accessible and scannable
KPI cards surface the most critical number (Overdue: 1) in orange, above the fold
Blocker identification reduced from 7 steps to 3 via red left-border pre-attentive coding
Results & Impact
What the design was built to move.
Usability testing with n=8 participants 4 project managers, 4 executives. Scenarios tested: report generation, blocker identification, executive portfolio scan.
Metric | Baseline | Result | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
Task completion rate | 62% | 91% | +29 percentage points |
Report generation time | 45 min | 8 min | −82% faster |
SUS usability score | 58 (Poor) | 82 (Excellent) | +24 pts |
Steps to flag a blocker | 7 steps | 3 steps | −57% fewer steps |
"I no longer need to shuffle through multiple documents and platforms to understand where each project stands. The dashboard gives me everything in one place."
— Project Manager, usability test participant
"The colour-coding system is a lifesaver. I know which projects need my attention right away without digging into details."
— Executive (COO), usability test participant
The trust problem, solved.
Executives were calling PMs to verify dashboard data the dashboard wasn't trusted. Adding a persistent data freshness indicator ("Last updated 2 minutes ago") resolved this almost entirely. Executive verification calls dropped from 4/5 to 1/5 after the redesign.
Reflections
What I'd carry forward.
The hardest trade-off balancing detail vs. overview. The hardest design challenge was giving PMs granular access without overwhelming executives. Progressive disclosure expandable rows, filter tabs solved this without requiring separate codebases or two different products.
Testing both user groups simultaneously was essential. A design that worked well for PMs often fell flat for executives and vice versa. Co-testing both groups in the same round caught conflicts early enough to fix them.
Quantify before you design. Qualitative feedback like "it feels easier" is not enough for an enterprise portfolio. Setting measurable baselines before testing time-on-task, SUS, step counts gave the results real credibility and made every design decision defensible.
I came in thinking the problem was missing data. I left knowing the real problem was missing trust.
Next phase
Phase 1 - Foundation gaps: Mobile responsive Exec view · Empty and error states · Skeleton loaders for live data · Onboarding flow for new users
Phase 2 - Intelligence layer: AI-powered risk prediction · Slack and Teams notifications · Custom metric builder · Historical trend analysis
Phase 3 - Ecosystem integration: Jira/Asana bi-directional sync · API webhook export · Collaborative editing in reports · Feature adoption analytics
Concept Case Study · Anonymised from real work · Client details available privately on request
