Demand Driven
Supply Chain SaaS

Method

Ideation & Discovery

Every few months we were having a workshop. When everything was discussed and well planned I launched the design process. I was starting every sprint with DDMRP top consultants to better understand the topic I was going to be working on this week. I presented my hypotheses & possible solutions. Then I had a week to design & validate it.

Design & Validation

It’s hard to get to the real client in such a business, but fortunately on this project there already are the best specialists and consultants from the industry. By the end of the week I had another call with them to validate what I have designed, and make some improvements.

Proof of concept

When everything was ready I had a prototype including all the core use-cases, so it could be properly tested and the team could play with it. If they can break it – then I can achieve even better results, that’s the main principle. After it’s ready and agreed, we can move to another sprint.

Client & user discovery

To better understand the user I prepared personas & user journeys. The journeys are not strict, as it’s the job of the software to orchestrate them and make them do what’s needed. That’s why the optimisation of these journeys is the main key to success, and it’s something we were improving sprint by sprint.

Information architecture

Due to the amount of information it was a huge task to come up with IA allowing you to both comply with the workflow, and allowing you to quickly get wherever you want at the same time. And every iteration we’re getting closer. Currently it has 6 main sections with pretty elegant internal discipline.

Layout

Labeling or iconization, comply with the market or innovate? The project has a very strong and flexible layout, revolutionary filtering, and a great balance between relying on intuitive UI and user’s professional knowledge. And after one year of work it still handles all the innovations pretty well.

Look & feel

The looks & feel is a golden mean between business applications built out of texts, tables, and charts, and modern clean approach with bigger texts, better colours and pleasing tone of voice. And it’s cool for the eyes. As I was working alone on the design and we didn’t have any big FE team neither I’ve made a decision to build it on Material UI DS to save some time. It was customized though.

UI Design

Over two hundred screens are built of over thirty components and their variations. All stuffed with complex charts and other visualisation types. Better visual can’t be presented here as it’s not released yet, but руку are few screens.

Proof of concept

The whole thing is all wired and clickable. Every use-case on every page is connected to one huge prototype. In such an embodiment it is easier to detect any deficiencies, find better ways and come up with a better solution.

The great minds in action

For the product it was crucial to meet in person for the ideation part. As members of the team are located in different countries it was a little tricky to organise it during covid pandemy. But we made it and had five long workshops on different locations.