Persona

Portal Concept

Background

The business identified a need to introduce a centralized dashboard that would connect our suite of educational tools.

Currently, users must navigate disconnected interfaces, making it difficult to move between tools efficiently. Additionally, users exist solely within their institution's context, preventing us from supporting their journey as they move between or work across multiple schools in our network.

Leadership requested a modern dashboard concept to solve these challenges while incorporating key features: user data visualizations, engagement badges, event calendar, notifications, enhanced profile management, and integrated access to platform tools.

Goal

Create a centralized dashboard that transforms how users interact with our platform and connect between tools. The legacy system not only treated users as institutional assets but also forced them to navigate disconnected workflows across separate tools. By establishing independent user records that can be associated with multiple institutions and creating seamless tool connections, we can preserve valuable user data even as administrators and educators move between schools. This shift enables more personalized experiences based on role, location, and expertise while simplifying institutional management through centralized user permissions and unified navigation across all platform tools.

Challenge

This project faced a dual challenge: technical complexity and business evolution. Our tools operated independently with separate codebases, user management systems, and interfaces - making integration complex. Additionally, the shift from institution-owned users to independent user records required careful consideration of existing data relationships and permissions. We needed to maintain institutional administrative control while enabling user autonomy across multiple schools. Executing these fundamental changes within a 90-day window while keeping the system flexible for future enhancements added another layer of complexity to the project.

Solution

Started with an initial dashboard vision that unified platform navigation and established independent user records. Working closely with a Project Manager and Business Analyst, we used object mapping (OOUX) to define scope and user flows. Our approach focused on rethinking the relationship between users and institutions while creating intuitive paths between previously disconnected tools. This foundation became our working group's blueprint for a phased implementation that would deliver key functionality within our 90-day timeline while enabling future platform evolution.

This approach provides:

• A global header component providing centralized access to all platform tools
• Two distinct navigation paths: global platform navigation and contextual tool-specific navigation
• Independent user profiles that maintain relationships across multiple institutions
• Unified administrator controls for managing user access and permissions across all tools
• Integration points for user data visualizations, badges, event calendar, and notifications
• Modern interface aligned with post-merger branding

Process

Initial Vision

• Created a quick example of what could be, leveraging knowledge of platform features, content, and future objectives
• Established intuitive navigation through grouped content
• Provided two navigation paths so users are always aware of location: global platform navigation and contextual tool-specific navigation
• Integrated updated branding into interface and visuals

dashboard layout broken down by navigational groups

Kitchen Sink Object Mapping

• Conducted comprehensive object mapping including all potential features
• Added known gaps, user feedback, and business requests to establish complete view
• Used Trello for remote team collaboration
• Documented known/unknown elements for future consideration

Refined Object Map

• Refined priorities for initial release from "Kitchen Sink" exercise
• Established relationships between core components
• Updated and documented current information
• Removed undefined features like notifications and external event calendar

Focused on Global Header

• Identified all objects shared a common thread - global functionality
• Concentrated on onboarding process flowing to header
• Created scalable foundation component
• Established achievable 90-day implementation plan
• Minimized scope creep while maintaining flexibility for future development
‍

Next Step

The next steps are to complete the object map and begin high-fidelity design. As a preview of later project phases, I included a few high fidelity design examples for key dashboard pages.