Project Management Apps
Early on in my career i worked on redesigning project management applications. below are 2 examples.
situation
Below are 2 examples of project management apps where the brief was very contrasting. The first one was a new application that wanted to get on with supporting user functions with minimal configuration needed from the user's end. The other was a highly customization application that ended up being a platform for creating project management workflows for the end user.
task
My job was to indepedently handle the stakeholders and come up with screen designs.
action
First app was on the lines of simplified approach where the user easily track her projects.
Dashboard
Bug Tracking Feature
Some of the key redesign features were
A summarized dashboard that displayed the most critical information upfront. This objective was to ensure the information was easy to interpret and act upon by the end user.
Tracking of project milestones by number of days left to deadline. Essential information was brought upfront on the dashboard for user to get the project gist.
A To-Do list for each project with assigned tasks and completion date. Most worked on projects were shown upfront and not hidden under projects tab.
Ability to allocate tasks to people.
Ability to collaborate at a team level and document discussion.
A special feature to easily capture and track bugs and defects. We proposed that the app have an icon on the task bar. As soon as the user noticed a bug would click on the icon that would grab a screenshot in a dialog box. He could enter bug description and classify it and save the bug.
The second app allowed for lot of customization so the user could define a project management workflow process using the app.
Form creation tool
Contextual Forms
Other customizations
Customization included almost everything the roof of under project management
User could define requirements, issues, risks, test cases, support tickets, etc. in terms of process, policies and notifications
Create a project, setup user access to the project, custom fields and planning.
Define custom fields for a project which was a specialized tool to create a form with desired fields.
Either inherit a project or create a project from scratch
Contextual forms that saved the user from having to go to a different section to add details of a project.
result
This was a great learning experience for me as i was exposed to all types of UI patterns and usability principles early in my career.
