Designing for Sally: Turning Dashboards into Decision-Making Tools for Impact-Driven Employers
Internal tooling impact
B2B2C
Modular design
👀 Setting the scene: Why Control Center needed a reset
The Control Center is a foundational internal platform employers use to manage employee programs, benefits, and content. When employers log into it, they’re under pressure. They need to see what matters, act on it quickly and track impact. Yet the homepage they used was a patchwork of static tables and scattered data: more noise than guidance. I led the redesign of the homepage into a personalized, task-focused dashboard that helps users prioritize work, understand key metrics, and feel in control.
Timeline: Dec 2024 – Apr 2025
Team: Sr. Product Designer, Product Designer,
Product Manager, Engineer
Role: Product Designer
🤯 Sally was stuck in a cluttered homepage. It was designed to show everything yet made it difficult to do anything.
Employers used the tool to make time-sensitive decisions across programs and platforms. But:
There were plenty of ways to take action—but no insight into how those actions impacted employees, leaving users unsure of where to focus or how to drive meaningful outcomes.
Even when insights were available, there was little guidance on how to act on them or tie them back to employee outcomes.
There was no visual hierarchy guiding what mattered now.
"It shows a lot… and it makes it hard to do anything."
– Internal feedback
How might we help Sally move from confusion to clarity the moment she logs in?
🧭 Shifting the focus from passive information to active decision-making.
Instead of asking “Where do I find X?”, I asked “What should I act on today?” That single change grounded every design decision moving forward.
Prioritize action over passive data
Make insights digestible and dynamic
Support personalization based on recent activity
Surface only what’s essential upfront
Design for configurability and scale
My target contributions:
→ Led homepage architecture revamp through wireframes and Miro mapping
→ Introduced the Action Center concept to surface time-sensitive tasks
→ Defined modular card system for personalization and flexibility
🔄 Braking it down: iterating toward the right solution
To redesign Control Center in a way that genuinely supported employers, I followed a flexible but structured design loop inspired by the Double Diamond. I spent time understanding where the experience broke down, defining the real problems, exploring multiple directions, and iterating quickly with cross-functional partners.
This process gave me the foundation to move confidently into structural design decisions. With the problems clearly defined, I began mapping the employer journey, restructuring the information architecture, and shaping the layout through wireframe explorations.
Each step helped clarify what employers needed and how to surface the right information at the right moment.
I examined employer workflows end-to-end to uncover emotional drop-offs, misplaced content, and missed opportunities for guidance. This clarified the moments where employers lost momentum and informed the hierarchy of the new dashboard.
I explored multiple layout variations to balance clarity, data density, and action visibility. These explorations helped validate the structure of the Action Center, insight cards, and quick-link tools.
🔧 Balancing constraints with user needs
I designed a dual-path solution: one version buildable now, and a future version with advanced features.
A client insisted on an action item calendar, I advocated for a more impactful solution, helping the client see that action-item surfacing would drive faster decision-making.
Regular peer reviews helped me keep clarity and accessibility at the forefront, balancing business goals with real user needs. We carefully crafted microcopy—using terms like "Take action" or "Recommended" to subtly guide intent.
💡 Bringing clarity, personalization & scale to life
The dashboard supports both micro and macro decision-making. Whether a user has 5 minutes or 2 hours, the layout provides a direct path to productivity and insight.
📈 Adoption, Clarity & Measurable Gains
What started as a cluttered, feedback-heavy interface turned into a bold bet on user-focused design. Despite tight deadlines and legacy constraints, we delivered a homepage that earned stakeholder praise, inspired internal adoption, and set a new standard for what a dashboard should feel like.
“Sally sees a trend, takes action, and sees impact—all from her homepage.”
– Leadership
Clarity in action: Employers no longer dig through data — it surfaces to them, prioritized.
Faster workflows: Personalized entry points reduced navigation friction significantly.
Endorsed by leadership: Became the reference model for all future internal dashboards.
Shared across teams: Presented as a showcase of scalable UI and thoughtful design.
✨ What I learned & what's next
This project helped me grow from a visual problem-solver to a systems thinker. I learned to communicate vision under constraints, push for clarity with impact, and design not just for what exists, but for what's next.
In hindsight: I would’ve loved to test more interactions for the help zones, especially for users onboarding for the first time. It’s a future iteration I’m excited about.