May 16, 2017 By adminCDS

Our user experience and user interface design for Brandsmacker

Some time ago we were approached by a young startup company to see if we could help them with the user experience and interface design of the customer facing side of their web platform. Phew! That was already a mouthful! Well, that’s probably quite apt for this project as we were faced with the somewhat daunting task of taking a vast array of graphs, links, sections, information, communication, statistics and goodness knows what else, and organising it into an attractive, engaging and above all useful dashboard.

Our first job was to really try and understand what they were trying to achieve, play around with what data was available, and see how a person might like to interact with it. Following a round of research we were able to layout user interface journey so we could more clearly see how the various bits of information relate to each other.

We coupled this with some research into the various design elements we might use to simplify, organise and categorise all the information in such a way as to make it easily accessible to the user.

The next phase of work was to take all that research and begin to turn it into a workable design for the Bransmacker developers to create the html and css code to bring it to life. Our goal was to simplify the user experience as much as possible, putting the required information up front and centre, and avoiding unnecessary click-throughs and page depths.

To that end we created a single, left-hand menu design to serve as the control centre for the rest of the content sitting to the right. Since this was focused on being a tablet or desktop application, there wasn’t a huge requirement for us to spend time on responsive design, so instead we put our effort into making the desktop environment as productive as possible. This meant that persistent information, such as the selection of a date-range, would always be available at a glance, without the need for additional hidden or drop-down menus.

We also integrated some visual feedback into the menu area by incorporating the overall statistical graph into the menu design itself. This means that the user can get an instant visual update on any of their user-feedback score without needing to navigate into that section.

Since the ability to communicate directly with customers through the iOS and Android applications was one of the major selling points of this platform, we decided to integrate messaging into all areas of the interface. This removed the need for a dedicated email-like interface, and instead put pop-up chat windows at the centre of the information that they related to.

The resulting interface design has been a huge hit with the Brandsmacker customers, putting the power of the multi-chanel customer experience manager right at their finger tips and allowing them to get on with creating a better user experience for their own customers.

If you’re interested to have a play with either the mobile app or the desktop manager, you can contact Brandsmacker through their website at: www.brandsmacker.com/