During my summer internship with Minitab as a Research and Design Intern, I had the opportunity to take point in workshopping ideas for redesigning the interface for Minitab Online (MSSO), the web application version of Minitab Statistical Software.
For my first project as an intern, I focused on coming up with a way to redesign the solutions module that was created to help various industries use data-driven strategies to measure KPIs such as reducing costs and visualizing trends.
Minitab Online inherits a number of legacy issues brought by its desktop counterpart. New users tend to have a difficult time navigating the application as well as discovering new tools, current users find that the menu is too crowded, and the solutions module that is intended to provide options tailored to specific industries leaves a lot to be desired.
My solution to simplify discoverability and usability was to overhaul the application's interface by redesigning the menu and solutions module.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to share details regarding the research process done by the UX Design Team prior to me being apart of this project because they're under NDA. I'm able to share that the team found the pain points described earlier through surveys they had conducted earlier that year. I was tasked to see if competitors such as JMP, SAS, SPSS, and Tableau had similar tools, but they didn't function the same way Minitab provides industry KPIs.
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The original version of the Solutions Modules opens up in a modal dialog window (i.e. only active window). If the user is halfway through choosing the options they need to but need to change a value in their worksheet or data, they would have to close the window, change the values, and start over. Depending on the industry or KPI, it would take about three clicks in a dialog before a user is able to get to where they need to be.
As for the menu, it is loaded with multiple tools that tend to lead to a long dropdown, covering page content. Some of the options in the menu lead to the same tool as a haphazard way to stop overcrowding a menu item.
Having done some research on modern UI conventions, and some ideas suggested by the team, I formed the hypothesis that I can improve the navigation experience and industry support by reducing the levels of information, eliminating dialogs, and simplifying the menu.
I was tasked with making a treatment, in this context a single screen that would fully represent how the redesign would look (icons, typography, color). I used Minitab's design system in UXPin for their components and branding.
My first instinct was to go with a more iterative approach. One of my colleagues on the UX Design Team worked on redesigning Minitab Workspace Online by having a rail menu to reduce the dropdown options. I thought it would be best to conform my redesign to that layout for consistency.
I sketched some ideas of how I wanted to approach my ideas, with different iterations being created based on feedback I received from senior members of team.
Rather than starting with a sketch, I created two lo-fi wireframes in UXPin to get a feel for how the prototyping tool worked compared to Figma.
I received feedback from the senior members of the team after presenting my progress. One note that helped influence the final design was to see if I could reduce the information levels (number of clicks to reach a tool/function) a step further. I figured I could do this by categorizing the most common functions in the KPIs and making them their own tabs.
How this works is that if you click on the icon with the industry, it opens a side navigation menu with the KPIs of the selected industry. The screen will show the tabs of the use cases and recommended options to perform statistical analyses.
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With the information levels reduced, I was able to conceptualize a version of the interface where users were able to perform the functions they need within two clicks. I opted to use three tabs since each KPI had three functions with no more than two sub functions.
I was grateful to have immersed myself within the UX Design Team at Minitab with this project. One big takeaway I had from this was that I really got to know the intricacies of UI design.
I recognized that documentation is important when communicating ideas and design rationale going from design to implementation. It helped me understand how developers make sense of ideas from designers. Having to design only a single screen also challenged me in the sense of prioritizing the information I wanted to get across.
With more time, I would have been able to develop a whole user flow, and create additional wireframes to demonstrate potential interactions. The project never went much further than the concepts shown because the circumstances didn't allow for a full redesign yet.
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