Formability
Internal tool design to help enterprise users build custom dashboards
Formability was a digital form-building and processing platform designed by Enovational to simplify government services. Common use cases include creating and submitting online forms for COVID vaccination appointments or government license applications.
Formability required custom dashboard creation tools to meet contractual demands for one of Enovational's clients. My team needed to design a scalable solution for their bespoke problem.
The Dashboard Builder feature was developed and adopted by Enovational's 9 Client Solutions teams.
UI/UX Designer
UI/UX Designer, Product Manager, Developer, SME
New Feature
I use the following process when designing an MVP. My goal is to find the one thing my product can do uniquely well and then get it to market fast.
Enterprise users don't like change and often prefer an imperfect solution to any alternative. My job is to understand their existing workflow and where the pain points are so I can design a solution that feels like an evolution, not a revolution.
Enovational was contracted by the Maryland government to develop Formability to replace its legacy AS/400 (Application System/400) software.
Maryland had used the system for decades and many employees were reluctant to learn a new system, delaying project acceptance. Enovational had agreed to add custom dashboard creation tools to Formability as part of a recent contract renegotiation.
The client needed dashboards to visualize data for reporting needs. They required maximum simplicity to minimize learning effort.
Dashboards would be created by Enovational employees. They prioritized functionality to meet all of their clients' needs, and consistency with the rest of Formability's design.
Our primary use case centered around a key stakeholder's monthly 'State Stats' report. With AS/400, the client faced a lengthy search for ~30 numbers to file in their report such as licenses awarded or complaints filed against the department.
Enovational leadership decided to add custom dashboard functionality to Formability to give the client everything they needed right up front.
Great design requires intense collaboration among cross-functional skill sets. I prefer to forget about titles and treat everyone as a designer with unique perspectives to help define requirements and generate solutions.
I worked closely with Enovational's Client Solutions department to define requirements and gain context for potential ways the dashboard builder would need to scale.
Another design team would simultaneously create Formability's 'Visualization Builder' to configure data visualizations to display on our dashboards. We'd need to stay in contact to ensure our designs were compatible.
Learning to use an enterprise product is like learning a new language. I simplify the process by reusing components and leveraging existing design patterns to create a consistent and intuitive experience.
Formability had many pre-existing 'Builders'. These features allowed Enovational employees to create low-code applications for their clients and would serve as the basis for creating the Dashboard Builder as well.
Each followed a consistent drag-and-drop design where inputs could be added from the left side panel and configured once selected via the right side panel.
Enterprise products are complex enough. I need to see the bigger picture to design features that scale beyond a point solution.
With the builders UI already largely determined, the design challenge came from scaling it beyond a point solution. Our primary use case was to display single numbers on a "Card", but that couldn't be the only thing our clients would need from Formability's dashboards.
The Visualization Builder team added "Table" and "Chart" visualizations but the question remained: what other types of content might users want to add to their clients dashboards?
I began to view the feature not as a vehicle for a use case, but as a toolbox for them to pick and choose from for use cases I couldn't even imagine.
I added Formability's existing "My Actions" and "List Views" to the toolbox to enable maximum capacity for our dashboard builders to serve our clients. "My Actions" were displayed on the home page and presented the user with work assigned to them, and "List Views" presented form submission data for review.
Enterprise features don't exist in a vacuum. Each needs to fit together in a cohesive way to support the larger purpose of the application to keep it lean, intuitive, and delightful.
The question still remained: "How would users access their dashboards?" Previously, logged in users would be greeted with their "My Actions" screen, displaying all work assigned to them.
However, with "My Actions" added to the Dashboard Builder toolbox, this functionality could be customized and expanded upon.
The Dashboard Builder allowed users to replace My Actions with a highly customizable and scalable dashboard. Users can be assigned to multiple dashboards, allowing for even greater scalability.
The feature was implemented across Formability for use by Enovational's 9 Client Solutions teams.
