YUJ Designs
2025
Making a disjointed operational workflow into a unified and streamlined digital ecosystem.
Over the course of a year, I worked as a UX designer to build a role-based service and project management tool for a nonprofit client that provides services like education and job oppurtunities to the youth of the country.
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
May 2024 - May 2025
Team
3 UX Designers, 2 VX Designers, 4 Developers
Platform
Web application
Overview
Making a disjointed operational workflow into a unified and streamlined digital ecosystem.
The platform was designed to support multiple user types, each with distinct needs and responsibilities, from field staff to executive leadership, replacing chaotic legacy processes with automated, permissions-based workflows. The design explored how clearer hierarchy, improved task visibility, and more structured layouts could reduce friction across the platform and service provided.
The Impact
The design focused on improving clarity of tasks due, ownership and service recipients journey through the dashboard having better hierarchy, more visible progress details and service recipients journey. The updated experience made everyday workflows easier to scan and navigate while introducing lightweight interactions that surfaced more context when needed.
+32%
Balance check speed
2.5 min → 1.7 min
+41%
Transaction clarity
34% → 48% confidence
−25%
Navigation steps
4 steps → 3 steps
Problem
Teams were juggling scattered data, manual tracking, and unclear task ownership leading to delays, errors, and frustration.
The nonprofit’s teams were juggling everyday operations across disconnected spreadsheets, phone calls, and messaging apps. Without a centralized system or clear task ownership, day-to-day planning felt entirely reactive, causing service recipients to frequently fall through the organizational cracks.
01
Scattered data
Legacy tools failed to adapt to distinct team responsibilities, leaving leadership blind to real-time impact.
02
Unable to prioritize
There was no single place where teams could see what mattered, when it mattered.
03
Workflow friction
Important actions required extra steps to access recipients’ details and journey context.
Research
Looking beyond the numbers
To better understand where friction appeared most we conducted user interviews with people regularly managing teams, data, and recepient activity. The research focused on how users scanned information, interpreted youths’ context, and navigated everyday tasks with the current tools they used.
20+ interviews (10 roles)
From leadership to higher management to field staff, all types of users were interviewed.
60 mins
Sessions were conducted usually with 1-2 interviewers and a note-taker.
Semi-Structured Interviews
Discussed pros and cons of current tools and workflows and expectations of new system.
What we learned
We clusterd interview notes, recurring frustrations, and behavioral patterns into broader themes. This made it easier to identify where users experienced the most friction across the dashboard experience.
Key insights
Redundant data entry across disconnected sheets consumed valuable time and created unnecessary manual overhead.
Missing context and fragmented tracking forced users to hesitate and constantly double-check before acting.
Disjointed documentation channels delayed follow-ups and made it difficult to capture a unified history for each enquiry.
The absence of a centralized overview obscured high-priority tasks and reduced visibility across team workflows.
Understanding the user journey
By auditing the entire multi-tool workflow across different user groups, we identified critical friction points and duplicate effort. We then replaced the fragmented process with a unified flow that streamlined data capture, clarity in decision-making, and status reviews.
Testing information hierarchy early
Before moving into high-fidelity designs, we tested the information hierarchy using a card sort activity. These quick sessions helped validate navigation patterns, layout hierarchy, and task completion behavior before investing time into polished UI design.
Ideation
Exploring interface directions
I explored multiple dashboard layout directions focused on balance visibility, recipeints journey context, and workflow clarity. Each concept tested different approaches to grouping information, simplifying navigation, and helping users scan important details faster to help decision-making faster.
Exploring different dashboard concepts focused on hierarchy, visibility, and clearer everyday task workflows.
01
Focused overview
Explored a simplified top-level summary with clearer balance visibility and primary actions.
02
Modular layouts
Tested flexible dashboard blocks to improve grouping, spacing, and information hierarchy.
03
Task oriented flows
Structured the interface around key individual and team tasks and recurring user workflows.
Designs
Refining the dashboard experience
The final redesign focused on improving clarity across everyday financial tasks through stronger hierarchy, simplified navigation, and more contextual transaction feedback. The updated interface made balances easier to compare, actions easier to locate, and activity flows easier to understand at a glance.
Refining the dashboard experience
The final redesign focused on improving clarity across everyday financial tasks through stronger hierarchy, simplified navigation, and more contextual transaction feedback. The updated interface made balances easier to compare, actions easier to locate, and activity flows easier to understand at a glance.
Refining the dashboard experience
The final redesign focused on improving clarity across everyday financial tasks through stronger hierarchy, simplified navigation, and more contextual transaction feedback. The updated interface made balances easier to compare, actions easier to locate, and activity flows easier to understand at a glance.
Refining the dashboard experience
The final redesign focused on improving clarity across everyday financial tasks through stronger hierarchy, simplified navigation, and more contextual transaction feedback. The updated interface made balances easier to compare, actions easier to locate, and activity flows easier to understand at a glance.
Refining the dashboard experience
The final redesign focused on improving clarity across everyday financial tasks through stronger hierarchy, simplified navigation, and more contextual transaction feedback. The updated interface made balances easier to compare, actions easier to locate, and activity flows easier to understand at a glance.
Lessons
Designing for clarity, confidence, and everyday financial workflows
This project reinforced how strongly financial confidence is shaped by interface clarity rather than financial complexity itself. Throughout the redesign, I explored how hierarchy, spacing, and contextual feedback could reduce uncertainty during everyday financial tasks. One of the biggest learnings was recognizing how small interface decisions — such as grouping, transaction context, and action placement — significantly influenced how users interpreted information and navigated the product.
Key outcomes
Clearer hierarchy
Improved separation between balances, transactions, and supporting details.
Faster dashboard scanning
Reduced visual competition across key financial workflows and actions.
More contextual activity
Introduced transaction states, merchant context, and clearer activity flows.
Scalable design system
Created reusable dashboard patterns and modular workflow structures.
