VMware is a global tech company that delivers software solutions for cloud infrastructure, including storage, networking, and automation software. I was on a team that developed software products to support internal teams.
From tables to charts
I was a key contributor to our team's design system.
I also worked on the product VMware used to track accounting and business operations. I designed new features for a project tracking tool that managers used to enter their direct reports' project working hours. The data was subsequently used by accounting to track capitalization and determine if they had the capacity to hire new employees.
Managers complained
that the existing product didn't have an easy way to view all their direct reports without filtering in a search box and waiting for the site to load. In response to these pain points, I designed a new view that eliminated all performance issues by pre-fetching their direct reports first based off of their email.
Testing this concept
with managers revealed that the list view was not effective in helping them see when a direct report rolled on and off projects, so I swapped the table design for a Gantt style chart to better show project allocations over time. We immediately saw improved comprehension. It also became easier to see when projects overlapped and thus easier to identify when someone could handle more projects or needed help.
Usage increased by 25%
the next quarter as compared to the existing feature being used for this workflow, a signal that our designs were 1) increasing adoption by attracting new users to the platform and 2) improving usability by converting existing users to the new version.