Reimagining Board Meeting Approvals
Company Sponsor
OnBoard
Roles
UI/UX Designer
Duration
Aug 2023 - Dec 2023
Team Size
4 UX Designers
1 Digital Architect
In Partnership With The UX Experience Studio
This project was completed in partnership with the UX Experience Studio at Purdue University. While this project was completed and possibly implemented by a client company in a contract setting, I was not compensated in any way outside of the permission for inclusion in this portfolio.
Background
Who is OnBoard?
OnBoard is a Board-to-Board (B2B) intelligent board management software that offers tools for effective board communication, organization, and decision-making. Some key features include approvals, surveys, and e-signatures (collectively referred to as actions).
What are approvals?
For our project, we specifically focused on improving OnBoard’s approvals feature. Approvals are a type of action within OnBoard and involve a process where individuals vote on decisions that require sign-off before implementation, such as proposals, budgets, loans, nominations, and other high-impact decisions important to the organization.
Problem
Approvals are required for nearly all board-level decisions before implementation. However, the existing Approvals experience lacked clarity, efficiency, and intuitive structure. Users struggled to navigate the approvals process, identify open vs. complete tasks, and track past voting results.
My Responsibilities
Conducted secondary research on board meeting workflows, governance processes, and approval activities.
Performed a heuristic evaluation the current site and a competitive analysis of leading board management platforms.
Created a current-state journey map to visualize user pain points across approvals within meetings.
Participated in and supported user interviews and usability testing sessions.
Translated research findings into low-fidelity sketches and solution concepts.
Developed and delivered the final high-fidelity prototype for stakeholder handoff and implementation.
Design Process
For this project, I followed a very typical design process with a sponsor required design system sprint. I started with researching board meeting proceedings and conducting a heuristic evaluation of the current system. After I defined the workspace I learned about OnBoard's current design system and began ideating on possible solutions. This led to a series of prototypes and user testing before we arrived on a final design.
Research
Robert's Rules Of Order
Robert's rules of order is a set of procedures that provides a standardized framework for conducting meetings, making motions, and voting within a formal board setting. It ensures discussions are organized, fair, and efficient, helping boards and organizations make decisions transparently and legally.
Calling the meeting to order
Agenda Approval
Motions
Debate / Discussion
Voting
Minutes
Meeting adjournment
Heuristic Evaluation Findings
Visability
There was no clear indication of the approval status apart from black text labels. This text did not stand out from the rest of the present information.
Consistency
Approvals were sorted by date created rather than state. This made it harder to locate the approvals that needed to be acted on.
Recognition
Key features for decision making, such as voting discussions and relevant resources were not intuitive to reach. This forced the voter to remember previous information in order to vote.
Journey Map
This journey map outlines the end-to-end flow a board member follows when using OnBoard to review and approve decisions. The process begins with logging in and accessing the platform, followed by navigating to the approvals section to view and filter relevant items. From there, the user performs specific actions, reviews details, and engages in related discussions before proceeding to cast a vote on open approvals.
Hi-Fi Solutions
Approvals Home Page
The approvals homepage received a lot of organizational and quality of life changes. Overall, the purpose of this page remains the same. changes included smaller, expandable, approval cards with new tags to help the user find the approvals they're looking for.
Approvals Home Page Additions
Other additions to the homepage include new ways to filter the page so the information most relevant to the user is always available. You can also see the expanded forms of the approval cards. They display a full description of the approval and the current status for that approval. This expanded card also allows you to "quick vote" on approvals
Open Approval
The open approval page was completely redone to maximize space and display lesser known features of the OnBoard system. On this page you see the same information that you would see in the expanded form of the approval card with the addition of an in depth tally of the votes and access to the discussion chat which wasn't widely available in the past.
Approval Analytics
Once an approval is completed it will be moved to an archived section of the approval homepage. This page with display the same approval name, description, and results in a more visual breakdown with the ability to dive deeper if voters gave rationale for their decisions.
Reflection
This project was my first true introduction to a design-based industry project. My previous projects had been very heavily research-based and it was nice to see a different perspective to UX. I also really appreciate the time that the sponsors took to make sure we did a proper deep dive into design systems and how they work. All of these factors makes this one of my favorite projects that I have worked on to date.
Lets Connect
Feel free to reach out to me with opportunities or just to say hi!
