Client hub design
Product
Sourceful platform
My role:
UX/UI + Design system
Date:
Q2 2024
Creating a unified, digital platform for SME customers to manage quotes and orders efficiently and reduce reliance on offline tracking methods.
The team and my role
As one of 3 product designers on this project, I worked across two different squads—one for customer-facing features and one for admin-facing tools—ensuring design consistency while developing complex components for the latest design system. I was responsible for creating a cohesive UI across both areas, and collaborating closely with Product Managers and engineers to align user flows and improve the overall experience.
The challenge
Customers relied on disparate, offline methods (emails, chats) to track their quotes and orders, creating inefficiencies and confusion. Internally, Sourceful's team needed a centralised, standardised view of quotes and orders too, allowing them to reduce reliance on admin and external tools for tracking.
The goal of this feature was to provide Sourceful's SME customers with a unified, digital environment for accessing and managing all this, both for present quotes/orders and past ones.
Research insights
The research highlighted significant user pain points, such as the need to manage quotes across multiple areas, the complexity of handling different quote types, and the reliance on offline Excel models. Users faced challenges with accessing and tracking quotes effectively, which impacted their overall experience and engagement with Sourceful.
Platform wireframes
The design process involved creating a unified interface for managing all types of quotes and orders under one roof. Key features included a centralised platform for viewing and editing quotes and orders, and tools for manual line edits and indicative price sharing.
Impactful design decisions
Unified Quotation Management: Centralising all quotes within the Platform to eliminate the need for multiple areas and manual tools.
Enhanced Quote Features: Introducing capabilities for manual edits, indicative price sharing, and downloadable quotes and added documents in Excel and PDF formats.
Helping the user navigate the platform
Four key enhancements:
Apps Menu: providing users with easy access to different tools within Platform. This menu centralises access to key features, reducing the need to navigate through multiple screens.
Account Menu: Introduced an Account menu to streamline access to account settings and user-specific actions. This menu helps users quickly manage their profiles, preferences, and other account-related tasks.
Sidebar Menu: Designed a sidebar menu to consolidate key navigation elements, enabling users to access various quote management features and settings from a single location. This reduced the need for complex navigation paths and improved efficiency.
Tertiary Navigation: Added a tertiary navigation layer to provide users with quick access to related sections and actions within the Platform. This feature allowed users to easily switch between different quote/orders types and functions without losing context.
Categorising the information
To enhance information accessibility, we introduced a slide-out component that categorizes content into three distinct tabs. This approach replaced the previous endless scrolling method, allowing users to easily switch between categories without losing context. The tabbed interface provides a streamlined way to access different sections of information, improving user experience by reducing clutter and making relevant details readily accessible.
Keeping consistency
To ensure a consistent experience across client and admin views, we retained the slide-out component and adapted the tabbed content to meet the specific needs of each user type. The slide-out maintained its structure, with tabs dynamically changing content based on whether the user is a client or admin. Additionally, we introduced a client toggle view in the top navigation, allowing the team to easily switch between client and admin perspectives while preserving the overall design consistency and usability.
Next steps
To further improve the platform, additional development areas would include custom quantities, supplier quote confirmations, and enhanced quote versioning. These enhancements are aimed at providing more flexibility and functionality for both customers and admins.