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Ananta Singh

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Bridging the Gap Between Cost-Efficiency and High-Quality Materials

Overview

In the enterprise B2B space, procurement for sustainable building materials remains a challenge. Businesses, ranging from small contractors to large firms, struggle to find high-quality, LEED-certified materials that align with their budgets. Our team was tasked with designing an enterprise dashboard that streamlines this procurement process, enhances usability, and ensures transparency. The goal was to create an intuitive platform that simplifies complex workflows, supports vendor-user interactions, and enables businesses to make sustainable choices efficiently.

Project Scope

Design an internal dashboard for operations teams, architects, and procurement managers to track messages, manage deals, and streamline the material procurement process.

 

Target Users:

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  • Procurement Managers

  • Architects & Contractors

  • Business Owners

  • Sustainability Consultants

The Problem

Existing procurement systems were fragmented, unintuitive, and lacked clear navigation, making it difficult for businesses to efficiently find and purchase high-quality, sustainable materials. Users needed an enterprise-level solution that simplified complex workflows, improved transparency, and provided an effortless experience.

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Navigating construction permits and project approvals was a slow, manual, and error-prone process.

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  • Contractors struggled with complex compliance requirements.

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  • Manual paperwork led to delays and inefficiencies.

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  • No centralized system for tracking approvals and project status.

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  • Teams needed a streamlined digital solution that ensured accuracy and compliance.

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Key Challenges

Legal & Compliance Constraints

  • Permitting and documentation had to align with strict industry regulations, limiting design flexibility.

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Diverse User Base

  • Contractors, project managers, and legal teams had varying levels of tech proficiency, making UI simplification essential.

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Integration with Legacy Systems

  • The platform needed to seamlessly connect with existing approval systems without disrupting workflows.

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Reducing Information Overload

  • Users were overwhelmed by lengthy legal texts. We needed to simplify and prioritize key information.

User Research & Market Analysis

To understand user pain points and industry standards, we conducted:

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  • Competitive Benchmarking: Analyzed leading dashboards in the market, including Salesforce, Tableau, and Monday.com, to identify usability gaps and best practices.

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  • User Interviews: Spoke with procurement managers, business owners, and sustainability consultants to uncover inefficiencies in their current workflow.

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  • Surveys & Data Analysis: Collected quantitative data to assess the most common pain points in procurement systems.

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Key Pain Points Identified:

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  • Confusing permit requirements.

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  • Delays due to missing documentation.

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  • No real-time project status tracking.

Design Approach

  1. Step-by-Step Permit Guidance 

  2. Document Upload & Verification

  3. Real-Time Project Dashboard

  4. Compliance-First UI 

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Design Decisions & Constraints

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  • Regulatory Compliance: Ensured alignment with legal requirements for document storage & security.

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  • User Accessibility: Used high-contrast UI, clear form labels, and assistive tech compatibility.

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  • Seamless Integrations: Connected with third-party approval systems to prevent duplicate work.

Ideation & Wireframing

Based on research insights, we created multiple iterations of wireframes to test different layout structures. We focused on:

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  • Clear Information Hierarchy – Ensuring that essential details (pricing, sustainability certification, material specifications) were prominently displayed.

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  • Consistent Nomenclature – Standardizing terminology to create a cohesive experience across different suppliers.

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  • Streamlined Navigation – Designing an intuitive sidebar and search functionality for quick access to materials.

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  • Customizable User Preferences – Allowing users to filter based on budget, sustainability criteria, and supplier rating.

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We tested our wireframes against existing dashboards and iterated based on feedback from usability testing.

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Final Designs & Impact

The redesigned dashboard led to:

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  • 35% Faster Procurement Time – Users could complete purchases in significantly less time.

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  • 50% Increase in Adoption Rate – More businesses onboarded due to ease of use.

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  • Improved Sustainability Awareness – Integrated sustainability ratings and cost breakdowns helped businesses make informed choices.

Key Takeaways

  • Bridging Business and User Needs: A balance between cost-efficiency and quality can be achieved with the right design approach.

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  • Data-Driven Iteration is Key: Research, testing, and iteration played a critical role in refining the dashboard.

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  • Enterprise UX Requires Simplification: Reducing cognitive load and streamlining workflows are essential in enterprise UX design.

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This project reinforced my ability to solve complex UX problems through research-driven design and iterative testing, ultimately delivering a dashboard that is both business-friendly and user-centric.

My Approach

To better understand current workflow challenges and pain points with the existing tools & identify key tasks for different user roles within UPS that the new tool needed to address, I decided to conduct User Interviews with team members from logistics, support, and management to gather insights on pain points and daily usage requirements. and Reviewed the existing tool’s UI and UX to pinpoint barriers in user journeys and inefficiencies in layout and navigation.

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