ERP Design
I remember the first day when I was introduced to this new domain at work on ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP has been in market from the 1960’s, we could recall into history by understanding why and how it was created. Keeping it short, I would say all the applications are created to process information faster & to compute digits and values of large amount of data for companies to perform a particular task. This ERP application also has features to store, retrieve and check history’s when required. Which is what we call it as “Automation” in one word.
That brings us to the crux of the pic what an ERP application is trying to solve for us.
Challenge
The project challenge I had at work on was to re-design the overall look and feel of the ERP application and also simplify each process in each modules based on the business requirement. (12 different modules was the real challenge)
What did it require ?
Being it a new domain understanding each process (logic) flow of a module was critical for me to know the actual user flow of the application. Then that lead me to the next level of mapping with the business requirements hand in hand to do the gap analysis in the existing application. As the final step required the icing on the cake to bring in a new flavour of UI to make it meaningful for the end user.
Recapitulating on the GOAL of the project!
- Understanding the process / logic flow of the module
- Mapping it with the business requirement for gap analysis
- Binding it with wonderful aesthetic UI to make it easier for the end user to navigate around
My Role
I have lead the whole project as a UX/UI Designer, collaborating with designers and developers to understand the domain, and with the client to get the requirements, and in addition I have exchanged multiple hats as a researcher, prototyper and as a product manager to start development within four months of dedicated time to design. (Live Project - Under development)
I chose one module to discuss in detail!
I want to pick Marketing module to describe the challenge in detail.
This module had various features for a user to play with on one screen. This approximately involved three slices of information on a single page. You will shortly have a better understanding as readers as you see an image of it. (Shared below in the document )
Early insights from the field
After visiting the client’s location I grabbed multiple pain points from their existing CRM application and tried to gather exact informations on the users, requirements etc. I came to understand that this marketing module is used by the client for self promotions purpose. There were multiple users such as marketing manager, Tele-callers, Personal relationship officers working on the marketing module to promote their product. I got to play around with the CRM Application and understood the pain points as a user.
While entering the lead information the forms where too long
It didn’t have clear cues for the user to see the complete process ahead of time before entering the lead information.
Aesthetically it was blunt & mundane comparing it to the action buttons on a page.
As the client was using a third party tool for a calling purpose it was bit of an obstacle for them to move from one application to another for calling purpose.
Report generated where not dynamic and easy to understand for the user.
An glimpse into my final Screens
You could compare the looks of the mundane looks of the clients CRM application to which I have enhanced the over all look and feel of it as a complete Re-design in the following image.
The lead information will open as a pop up on the right side panel when you click in the plus create button on the right.
This was one of the major requirement from the client that he wanted to see the process happening in one page rather clicking a button should not result in opening a new page. He wanted to see a three piece information on a single page.
I have worked on visualising the screen by integrating multiple features on one page. (Call, message & Attachments later I even added email to it.
The information gets stored on the left panel based on what you click to choose should open on the right side.
Each stage of the marketing module is given as a header as a cue for the user to track the whole process of the candidate. This also reduces the ambiguity of filling up a form for user in knowing when it’s going to end or how much more is there to complete the whole process.
These screens are still enhanced, modified based on the clients requirements to make it meaningful for the end user capturing all the aspects or advantages of the business requirement.
Conclusion
It’s very hard to conclude, but I hope you could have seen the detailing that has been gone into just one screen having multiple layers of information. There is always a huge impact on well designed screens because it solves the trauma or the anxiety for people while filling up forms in general.
I believe this is where a User Experience designer comes into play to dissect the information layer by layer and would create a simple, rational and a meaningful user journey for the end user.