YUJ Designs
Role
UX Designer
Scope
End-to-End System Integration
Duration
May 2024 - May 2025
Overview
Over the course of a year, I worked as the lead UX Designer to build a role-based service and project management tool for a nonprofit client. The goal was to streamline operations across multiple user types—from on-the-ground field staff to executive leadership—replacing chaotic legacy processes with automated, permissions-based workflows.
The Problem
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.
Finding the Gap
Through user research, I discovered that the system completely lacked role-specificity. Field workers needed frictionless, mobile-first data logging while on the ground, whereas executive leadership required aggregated data to monitor quarterly targets; forcing both into the same messy spreadsheets created massive friction and data gaps.
The Solution: Core Features
SOLUTION 1
The Dashboard & Action Cards
Personalized dashboards transform data overload into actionable, bite-sized daily priorities.
SOLUTION 2
Progress Tracking Workflow
I designed tabbed, visual pipelines that map out the end-to-end journey of a service recipient. Teams can intuitively advance individuals through different program stages, keeping every department aligned on a recipient’s live status.
SOLUTION 3
Service Recipients’ Journey Records
Field staff operate in fast-paced environments where heavy text input fails. By replacing complex forms with optimized mobile dropdowns and quick-entry fields, staff can map recipients to opportunities live on-site, ensuring high data integrity before they even return to the office.
SOLUTION 4
Bulk Status Management
Batch actions eliminates repetitive, individual status updates, freeing up hours of manual entry every week.
SOLUTION 5
Opportunity Matching Tool
To streamline how resources are allocated, I built a matching interface that displays opportunity requirements side-by-side with recipient profiles. The tool automatically recommends the best options based on historical data, user preferences, and program progress.
SOLUTION 6
Field-Friendly Mobile Updates
Field staff operate in fast-paced environments where heavy text input fails. By replacing complex forms with optimized mobile dropdowns and quick-entry fields, staff can map recipients to opportunities live on-site, ensuring high data integrity before they even return to the office.
The Impact
Shifting from disjointed tools to a unified platform dramatically reduced duplicate entry and administrative overhead. Furthermore, by introducing color-coded target monitoring, executive leadership shifted from guesswork appraisals to real-time, data-driven staff evaluations.
Learning Outcomes
Speak the client’s language by understanding their context and hesitations—show how your design makes their work easier, not harder
Design with familiarity in mind—respect what users are used to and guide them toward better systems through intuitive, gradual transitions.