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Streamlining Regulatory Compliance: A User-Centred Dashboard Redesign 

My Role:

Product Designer

Client:
Ruleguard
(FKA AxiomHQ)
Project Duration:

8 Weeks

Project Scope:

Web application

Background

Ruleguard is a web-based Regulatory-Technology SAAS product that enables financial institutions to streamline their regulatory and compliance processes and workflows. The London-based Start-up was at a stage of rapid growth and there was a strong need to transform its User Experience to meet up with clients’ and investors’ expectations. 

Project Overview

The objective of the project was centred around simplifying and streamlining regulatory and compliance processes and workflows for the end users while leveraging the new design system to address specific pain points and improve the usability and aesthetics of the platform.

My Role

As the sole Product Designer, I had the opportunity to fully champion and execute all aspects of the redesign of the User Experience of the Ruleguard platform, after the success of the design system. 

I was responsible for:

  • Conducting user research and analysis
  • Developing the design concept and vision
  • Creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs
  • Collaborating with the development team to ensure design integrity
  • Conducting usability testing and gathering feedback

My contributions to this project included:

  • Developing a user-centered design approach that prioritized simplicity and clarity
  • Introducing a customizable dashboard feature to enhance user engagement and efficiency
  • Improving the overall design aesthetic and visual consistency.

Business Needs

To gain a deeper understanding of the project requirements, I met with product leaders to discuss the product roadmap and engaged with the Sales and Support teams to gather insights into user needs. These discussions led to the identification of the following problem statements:
  • Compliance managers struggle to keep up with regulatory updates, leading to delayed implementation and adherence to controls and rules.
  • Risk managers face difficulties consolidating data from multiple sources, hindering accurate risk assessments and informed decision-making.
  • The lack of real-time notifications delays the resolution of compliance issues.

Research & Analysis

Extensive research was conducted to understand the needs of the clients & business stakeholders and to seek avenues and opportunities for improvement.

The research goals were to:

  • Understand the daily workflows and pain points of compliance and risk managers.
  • Identify specific user needs that would enhance their regulatory and compliance processes.
Research Approach
To gain a deeper understanding of our users’ needs, I conducted:
  • User Interviews: In-depth interviews with close to 20 stakeholders comprising of Internal staff and actual users.
  • Card Sorting: Card Sorting exercise with business stakeholders and clients to gain insights into their interpretation of the taxonomy to provide insight into improving the Navigation.
  • Competitor Analysis: SWOT analysis on Competitors to get a better understanding of industry standards and best practices.
  • Surveys: Online surveys were distributed to 36 users utilising Typeforms, to gather quantitative data on their daily workflows and pain points.

User Personas & Segmentation

To have a greater understanding of the target audience. I interviewed some of the SMEs and champions from our key accounts, I also spoke with members of the implementation team to gain clarity on some of the challenges our user face, particularly at the onboarding stage.

I was able to come up with 3 broad segmentations for our users.

Key Insights / User Needs

After thoroughly analysing the qualitative and quantitative data from the research, some crucial insights were unearthed summarised below:
  • Users struggled with navigating the sheer volume of regulatory updates and required a centralised dashboard for regulatory updates, rather than relying on scattered resources.
  • Users found it challenging to consolidate data from multiple sources and required robust data visualisation tools to facilitate accurate risk assessments.
  • Users expressed a need for real-time notifications to address compliance issues promptly.
  • Users often felt overwhelmed by data and sought simplified, customisable views.

Constraints

1. Tight Deadline (6 weeks):

The project timeline was condensed into a short 6-week period, requiring rapid research, design, and testing phases. This resulted in:

  • Accelerated user research, with a focus on quick turnaround times for interviews, surveys, and usability testing.
  • A condensed design phase, with emphasis on prioritizing key features and functionality.
  • A truncated testing phase, with a focus on high-priority tasks and scenarios.
2. Limited Resources (Small Team)

The dedicated project team consisted of a small group of 8 people comprising of:
1 Product Designer (me), 1 Product Manager, 1 Product Owner, 1 front-end Developer, 2 back Developer, 1 QA Engineer. This meant:

  • Shared responsibilities and roles within the team.
  • Limited bandwidth for research, design, and testing.
  • A need for efficient communication and collaboration to maximize output.
3. Complex Technical Requirements (Integration with Existing Systems)

The new dashboard needed to integrate seamlessly with existing systems, including: Legacy databases, APIs,
Third-party services and tools, as well as existing user authentication and authorization systems.
The implications were:

  • Close collaboration with the development team to ensure design decisions alligned with technical capabilities.
  • A focus on API design and data modeling to ensure smooth integration.
  • Consideration of existing technical debt and potential workarounds or solutions.

Design Exploration

Leveraging the UI components in the Design System I had developed earlier in the product lifecycle, I prioritized a clear and simple information architecture to reduce cognitive load and improve user focus. 

I chose a card-based layout to facilitate easy scanning and quick access to key metrics and features. This design decision was informed by user research, which revealed that users frequently accessed specific data points and actions.
To address user pain points, I introduced a customizable dashboard feature, allowing users to personalize their experience and prioritize their most frequently used features and data. This feature was designed to enhance user engagement and efficiency.

1. Restructuring the Navigation System

The magnitude of regulatory updates and tasks to perform can overwhelm the users, making a revamp of the navigation system essential. To address this challenge, I incorporated insights from the card sorting exercise and designed a user-friendly navigation system that uncomplicated the previous structure, hierarchy and taxonomy. The navigation system featured a persistent menu on the left, with custom icons based on the Material Design Icon theme. Users can now access critical modules effortlessly with all relevant updates, neatly categorised and displayed. The redesigned Navigation helped them stay in touch, made relevant information accessible and was visually appealing.

2. Managing Data Consolidation with Dynamic Dashboard Visualization Widgets

Consolidating data from diverse sources for accurate risk assessments was a complex task that our users faced daily. In response, I introduced dynamic dashboard widgets that transform data consolidation into a breeze. Users can select from a range of dashboard widgets tailored to their specific needs, such as risk heatmaps, compliance trackers, and data visualisations. The customisable nature of these widgets, also enabled users to curate their dashboard for a focused and efficient data management experience, empowering them to make informed timely decisions.

3. Real-Time Informative and Actionable Notification System

As inferred from research, real-time notifications are a critical component of the dashboard. Compliance Managers and Risk Managers now receive immediate alerts on compliance issues in an Inbox, and it has been made front and centre in the design, receiving a dedicated navigation item, thereby enabling them to respond promptly and maintain regulatory compliance. The design of these notifications, strikes a balance between visibility and non-intrusiveness, matching real-world usage as seen in other mail and notification platforms, ultimately ensuring that users are always notified and informed to take swift action where necessary without disruption.

4. Simplified Data Management with Customisable Data Tables

The challenge of users feeling overwhelmed by data led me to design customisable data tables. These tables allow users to personalise their data views by selecting relevant columns and applying filters. Users can adjust their data tables to match their unique workflows, effectively simplifying data management and reducing cognitive load.

 

Usability Testing & Handoff

I developed High-fidelity prototypes of the designs in Figma, before proceeding to facilitate Usability testing sessions with some of our users, which revealed areas for improvement in the top bar navigation. I then proceeded to refine some aspects of the dashboard’s layout and interactions, making it more intuitive and user-friendly before proceeding to hand it off to the developers.

Developer Handoff

Throughout the redesign process, we conducted regular sync-ups to address any questions or concerns. This iterative communication helped clarify design decisions, ensuring the development team understood the implementation and making sure we could address technical feasibility concerns as they came up. 

I was also sure to document the redesign and make annotations in Figma to explicitly identify things like spacing, layout, responsive breakpoints e.t.c.

The developers were familiar with working with Figma, so the handover process was quite seamless. 

The Result

By improving usability and streamlining processes this dashboard redesign project has shown that thoughtful design can alleviate challenges and empower professionals even in the seemingly complicated Governance, Risk and Compliance sector.

After the launch of the redesigned version, we experienced a remarkable transformation in user satisfaction. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) soared to an impressive 60, signifying a significant improvement in customer loyalty and advocacy. The feedback we received from our users was overwhelmingly positive. 

Some key lessons learnt from this process:

– Collaboration with end-users is invaluable in creating a user-centric solution.
– Balancing feature richness with simplicity is key to catering to complicated features and diverse user preferences.