Mosaic Global Technical Services Dashboard
The purpose of this case study was to demonstrate how I designed an interactive reporting tool to organize key metrics and KPIs for a Fortune 500 company.
A display of the summary page of the dashboard on a desktop computer. Note: Placeholder numbers and metrics were put in place.
Introduction
The Mosaic Company is a Fortune 500 company based in Tampa, Florida that mines phosphate and potash, two key ingredients for producing fertilizer. Mosaic is the largest producer of potash and phosphate in the United States, and has facilities all over the world.
The IT Infrastructure department of Mosaic is responsible for supporting IT operations across all of Mosaic’s corporate offices and mining facilities.
Mosaic’s IT Infrastructure team wanted to develop a dashboard to have a “single source of truth” where the staff could see all relevant IT Infrastructure activity across all of Mosaic.
“How Might We…”—Develop a Reporting Tool for All of IT Infrastructure
Project Goals
I was given the assignment of designing an interactive reporting tool that would organize the various metrics and activities that Mosaic’s IT Infrastructure team managed into a single source that Mosaic IT employees could reference.
The high level goals and objectives are as follows:
Identify what metrics were most relevant to Mosaic executive management as a whole, as well as what metrics were relevant for a specific department, like network services.
Create a series of components to organize the data in the reporting tool, and make sure the dashboard adhered to Mosaic brand guidelines.
Develop the reporting tool using Microsoft PowerBI, and identify the data source for the dashboard.
Research Goals and Objectives
I needed to understand following items:
1) Understanding which metrics had the highest priorities for the IT Infrastructure Team Members
2) Clarifying how to drill down and filter the data in the dashboard
3) Confirming that the visualizations desired could be built
Research and Analysis
I conducted research to understand what data the IT Infrastructure team wanted to capture with the interactive reporting tool.
Competitive Analysis-Understanding Dashboards
An example of sample dashboards
I reviewed several reporting and data visualization tools, to identify what elements of the dashboard design I needed to keep.
A competitive analysis of the following reporting services was conducted:
Microsoft PowerBI
Tableau
SolarWinds
The reporting tools reviewed all contained the following elements:
Visualizations meant to capture trend lines and changes over time
Integration with other data sources and reporting tools
The ability to drill-down and slice data into many different pieces
I also received company training on how to use Microsoft PowerBI to create visualizations.
User Interviews with Subject-Matter Experts
The affinity map, based of the user interviews
I proceeded to interview stakeholders from the various IT Infrastructure departments to understand what content they wanted to display on the dashboard.
Several recurring themes were captured in the interviews
A desire to view upcoming projects associated with their department
The ability to view scheduled outage for IT infrastructure like switches, routers, etc.
Seeing trends and performance metrics
Viewing employee availability
Capturing resource availability and utilization metrics
Organizing the Information
I proceeded to organize the research results into a coherent framework, using a style tile, a sitemap, user stories, and low-fidelity mock-ups
Sitemap of the Reporting Tool
I created the following sitemap, based off my user interviews, to indicate how someone could navigate and drill down through the reporting tool.
Expected Use Cases
I also developed user stories, to clearly articulate the functionalities the users expected the dashboard to have.
Low Fidelity Sketches of the Mosaic Newsletter
After reviewing my research and the content that needed to be provided, I proceeded to create a series of initial sketches that would serve as the basis for my low-fidelity and high-fidelity wireframes.
The image above shows some of the initial sketches of the dashboard. I ended up selecting Image #1 based on an equitable mix of requested tables, visualizations, and stand-alone numerical values.
The Low Fidelity Mock-Up of My Newsletter
Based off the user research, my interviews with the project stakeholders, and the initial sketches that I drew, I created a low-fidelity mock-up of the dashboard, which outlined how the content would be displayed
See the image below:
Creating a Style Tile for the Dashboard
Once the low fidelity wireframes were developed, I needed to further enhance the wireframes through the creation of a style tile.
The following style tile was created, based on the existing Mosaic brand and visual guidelines.
UI Components of the Dashboard
I also organized a series of components for the dashboard.
The Initial High Fidelity Mock-Up of My Newsletter
I then developed an initial high-fidelity mock-up of the newsletter, based on a combination of the style tile and the low-fidelity mock-up.
See the image below:
Usability Testing
I tested my initial high-fidelity wireframes with the relevant stakeholders to gain their feedback.
Usability Test Results
I ended-up testing the initial high-fidelity prototype with four IT project stakeholders, and was given the following feedback.
Users Liked
The clear visual contrast between the frame and the infographics
The contents of the infographics
The presence of the navigation bar and title
Users Disliked
The navigation tabs were hard to find and click through
Order and placement of visuals seemed off
There was unecessary geographic data in the Enterprise Systems, and End-User Computing sections
Revised High Fidelity Wireframes
High fidelity wireframes of the dashboard were created after the low-fidelity wireframes were successfully built.
The High-Fidelity Mosaic Dashboard
The summary page of the dashboard
The dashboard page for a specific department.
An image of the dashboard filtered for a region, Canada.
Further Actions
The following actions were taken after the high-fidelity prototype was finalized.
Moving Forward with the Mosaic Reporting Tool
An example of a sample mid-fidelity infographic describing Mosaic lunch and learn sessions.
Staff Members were impressed with the prototype, with one member stating: “This is exactly what I was hoping for”
Next Steps
Test out prototype with other IT Infrastructure users
Begin development process in PowerBI
Lessons Learned
The learnings from the case study were as follows:
Pre-existing data visualization design patterns are an excellent resource
What to drill down versus what to not drill down on is critical for a dashboard
Different dashboard information has different priorities, depending on the organization
