Edstruments
Creating an easier way for teachers and administrators to set and allocate budgets.
My Roles
UX/UI Design
Visual Design
Interaction Design
The Problem
Prospective users want long-term budget planning capabilities that make scenario planning and collaborative budget building easy on a 5-year time horizon.
The Scope
High Fidelity sketches that depict how a user would enter and interact with a 5-year project planning module.
High Fidelity sketches of how 5-year projection within the revenue scenario and budget allocation module would work.
Assumptions
People who are not very familiar with financial software will be the main users.
Users want to work with a 5 year out look all the way down to a specific year and line item
Kick-Off Meeting
To start the project we had a kick-off meeting with the stakeholders to help understand the user; the goals of the project and how the program functions.
Administrator
• main user of the program.
• have experience using other budget planning programs.
• focus is on how to distribute money throughout the district.
• Wants to see yearly projections.
Teacher
• infrequent user of the program
• Don’t have experience using budgeting programs.
• focus on giving feedback to administrators on assigned budgets.
Project goals
Establishing the project goals, in the beginning, helps lay a solid foundation and a good starting point for designing.
1. Redesign two modules to let users view a 5-year budgeting outlook altogether or year by year.
2. Redesign screens to create a more intuitive user flow for people who are unfamiliar with budget planning.
Sketches
After looking over the research previously gathered and the current page designs I start with rough pen and paper sketches of possible layout solutions.
I focused on 3 aspects when hand sketching.
How can the user toggle through future budget projections?
How to visualize a five-year projection.
Creating a less overwhelming and cramped layout.
Budget Allocation
This section would allow teachers and administrators to choose where to spend their budget based on different revenue scenarios.
Assign Revenue
Allows administrators to create different revenue scenarios based on how much revenue the school system is receiving.
Hi-Fi Mock Up
After gaining feedback from stakeholders and I focused on creating Hi-fi sketches of the Assign Revenue and Budget Allocation modules.
Assign Revenue
Budget Allocation
Design Iteration
After gathering insights and feedback from stakeholders, we iterated our designs to reflect the needs and behaviors of our users. Key design changes are illustrated below.
1. Assign Revenue
Before
After
2. Budget Allocation
Before
After
Conclusions
Final thoughts, lessons, and outcomes from working on the project.
Outcomes
Re-designed personal management and short-term planning modules to include 5-year planning and projection capabilities.
Created multiple tiered user flows that allows users to easily view expenses on a macro and micro level.
.
Lessons
Having a firm grasp of understanding the function of the product helps tremendously to better understand user needs and wants.
When working with a partner trust and objectivity is crucial for a partnership to work smoothly.