This design is optimized for 1920x1080 screens. The fold point coincides precisely with the conclusion of the side navigation bar. The Uploaded image is of the full artboard.

The above design is a small snippet of the work I did for a client.

Deep Dive into a User-Centric SaaS Dashboard Design Focus on Clarity and Efficiency

The core principle of this dashboard is to present crucial metrics at a glance. A clean layout with minimal clutter ensures users can readily grasp the information. Color plays a vital role, with green signifying positive changes and red indicating negative trends, facilitating rapid visual comprehension.

Personalized Side Navigation Bar:

• Branding Integration: The navigation bar seamlessly integrates with the user's brand. It starts with the company logo, fostering recognition. Additionally, the CTA (Call to Action) button colors dynamically adapt based on the primary color present in the logo, further enhancing brand identity. Since this is a white-labeled offering, the CTA colors are personalized using the brand's primary colors from the logo, following the Aesthetic-Usability Effect.

• Accessibility in Mind: Clear Labels or Icons for Universal Understanding: Toggle switches, in general, should always have clear labels or icons that indicate the function of each position. This is because users rely on these labels or icons to understand which state the toggle switch will activate when flipped. For instance, a light/dark mode toggle switch might be labeled with "Light" and "Dark" or use universally recognized sun and moon icons. Without clear labels or icons, users are forced to engage in trial and error, repeatedly flipping the switch to determine the desired outcome. This can be frustrating and hinders efficient interaction. Clear labels or icons are especially important for users with visual impairments or color blindness, who may not be able to rely solely on color cues to distinguish between toggle states.

• Organized Menu Structure: The navigation menu leverages the Gestalt Law of Proximity to group related options together. Frequently used functions are placed strategically at the top, making them readily accessible (Fitts's Law).

Traditional unread message indicators often use a colored circle as a container for the number of unread messages. However, this approach can create accessibility challenges in a white-labeled dashboard that adapts its colors to each brand. To address this, I've implemented a more user-friendly solution:

• Clear and Contrastable: The number of unread messages itself appears in the brand's primary color alone without any container, ensuring high contrast against the gray background.

• Universal Dot Indicator: A small dot, placed next to the number, serves as a universal indicator for unread messages. This dot functions consistently across all color schemes, providing an immediate visual cue for users who may have difficulty perceiving color differences. This design prioritizes accessibility best practices while maintaining a clean and visually appealing aesthetic. Users can quickly grasp the presence of unread messages, regardless of the brand's specific color choices.

Universal Top Header: Empowering Users

• Search & Utility: The header provides a search bar for quick information retrieval. The date and time display includes a calendar icon, allowing users to access their schedule for the day. A notification icon keeps users informed. Finally, a "+" icon empowers customization by enabling users to add desired elements to the header, fostering a user-centered experience.

• Location Awareness: Breadcrumbs are strategically placed at the top left corner, displaying the user's current location within the platform (e.g., Dashboard > Key Performance Indicators). This information architecture principle enhances user orientation.

There are two types of dashboards: Operational and Analytical

Operational dashboards and analytical dashboards serve different purposes in data visualization and decision-making processes.

• Operational Dashboards are designed to provide critical information quickly to users engaged in time-sensitive tasks and hence are less customizable. These dashboards are intended to support immediate decision-making and action, such as monitoring server availability, patient vitals during surgery, customer-service calls, or flight traffic.

• Analytical Dashboards, on the other hand, are designed to help users identify the need for further thought, investigation, research, or analysis. They provide a single-screen view of data that is used for analysis and decision-making, but they do not have the same level of time sensitivity as operational dashboards. Analytical dashboards are useful for understanding trends and patterns in data, such as sales trends over time or campaign performance in digital marketing.

The design in this case is an Analytical Dashboard and hence offers flexibility:

• Engaging Metrics at a Glance: The first section showcases four engagement-related graphs. The Gestalt Law of Common Region is employed by grouping them within a shared background, fostering a sense of cohesion. Dotted lines effectively separate each graph, maintaining clarity.

Leveraging Human Perception for Enhanced Usability:

• Visual Processing Power: Line charts capitalize on our inherent ability to process visual information quickly and efficiently. This is due to our pre-attentive processing abilities, which allow us to unconsciously detect visual features like color, size, and orientation without any focused attention. Line charts excel at revealing trends over time, making them a natural choice for this dashboard.

Horizontal Bars for Clear Time Representation: Horizontal bars are used to represent time periods on the x-axis. This aligns with our natural left-to-right reading pattern and facilitates easy identification of trends over time.

• Interactive Exploration: Hovering over a specific bar highlights the corresponding area under the curve, visually depicting the percentage change. This interactive element provides additional context and facilitates deeper analysis without requiring users to switch between different visualizations.

Legends Beside Lines: A UX Win

Legends traditionally placed far from their corresponding lines create a burden on our short-term memory, as described by Miller's Law. Miller's Law suggests that the average person can only hold around 7 items (plus or minus 2) in their short-term memory at a time.

When legends are positioned elsewhere on the chart, users must constantly switch their focus between the lines and the legend.

This requires them to remember the color of a line, then find the corresponding entry in the legend, and then mentally associate that entry with the line itself. If there are many lines on the chart, this can quickly overload short-term memory and lead to confusion and errors. For each new line you look at, you have to repeat this process, further straining your short-term memory.

To address this, this dashboard positions legends directly beside their corresponding lines.

• This approach adheres to Fitts's Law, which states that the time required to move to a target area is a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target. By placing the legends closer to the lines, the distance the user's eye needs to travel is minimized, reducing cognitive load and enhancing comprehension. Furthermore, each data marker on the lines has a unique shape, allowing for easier differentiation at a glance, as recommended by the Nielsen Norman Group Guidelines.

• Color-Coded for Quick Insights: Positive and negative changes are represented by color (Green for positive, Red for negative), leveraging the power of color coding to facilitate rapid visual interpretation of trends.

Customization: Empowering User Choice

• An "Edit Dashboard" button allows users to personalize the dashboard layout to fit their specific needs. The button's clear and concise text effectively conveys its purpose, avoiding any potential confusion. This empowers users to take control of their data visualization experience.

Conclusion: A User-Centric Approach

This SaaS dashboard prioritizes user experience through a clear and well-organized design, combined with customization options. It adheres to established UX principles, such as Fitts's Law, Gestalt Laws of Perception, and Nielsen Norman Group Guidelines. The result is an intuitive and informative platform that empowers users to make data-driven decisions with greater efficiency.

Below is the screenshot of the design that was given for the re-design work

To collaborate contact me at :

shreyasjswork@gmail.com

I specialize in crafting compelling and empathetic user experiences that drive conversions through the fusion of design ,psychology and neuromarketing.