DATAVIS PRODUCT USABILITY STUDY AND REDESIGN
Resilience Index audit and heuristic usability study
Project description
The Resilience Index (RIX) is FM Global’s tool for assessing and ranking countries’ resilience across economic, risk, and climate metrics. Despite its comprehensive data, users faced challenges navigating the interface and interpreting key features. To address this, I led a usability study to identify pain points and deliver targeted solutions for a more intuitive and engaging user experience.
This project spanned multiple interface components, including the help area, world map navigation, data dashboards, and comparison tools. The insights derived from user testing informed a series of impactful design updates that improved clarity, usability, and accessibility.
Timeline
About 6 weeks of structured research, testing, and iteration, culminating in actionable recommendations for the Resilience Index team.
Background
While the RIX provided a wealth of data, usability challenges hindered its potential. As the project’s UX lead, I developed and executed a comprehensive usability study plan. This involved defining the scope of the study, identifying key interface areas for testing, and recruiting participants representative of the tool’s user base.
We utilized a mixed-methods approach to capture both quantitative and qualitative feedback, emphasizing real-world usage scenarios. This process ensured that user insights directly informed design decisions and that all solutions aligned with their needs and expectations.
The challenge
The challenge of this project was to enhance the Resilience Index’s usability for both technical and non-technical users. This required addressing navigation inconsistencies, improving the clarity of data visualizations, and ensuring key features like the help area were easy to locate. The focus was on simplifying the experience without losing the tool’s depth.
Process
This project followed a structured, user-centered design approach to ensure that every improvement aligned with user needs and expectations. By combining research, prototyping, implementation, and testing, I delivered actionable solutions that enhanced the usability and functionality of the Resilience Index.
Research & Planning
Design & Prototyping
Building on research findings, I developed iterative prototypes to address the identified issues:
• Help Area: Redesigned with clearer visual cues, updated iconography, and more prominent tooltips.
• World Map Navigation: Simplified scroll and zoom functionalities and introduced a standalone map view to prevent accidental navigation away from the tool.
• Score Dashboard: Added hover states and interactive highlights to improve data visibility and comprehension.
Implementation
Collaborating closely with the development team, I ensured that design updates translated seamlessly into functional changes. Key actions included:
• Adding persistent headers for the “View Data” dashboard to enhance context during scrolling.
• Introducing dynamic tooltips for graphs, providing immediate clarity on complex data points.
Testing & Optimization
After implementation, I conducted a follow-up usability test to validate the changes. The test revealed significant improvements in navigation, task completion rates, and overall user satisfaction.
Key details of the usability study
A cornerstone of this project was the structured usability study I designed and facilitated. Key components included:
Participant Recruitment
To ensure the study was representative and actionable, I recruited a diverse pool of participants that mirrored the Resilience Index’s broad user base.
• Diversity in Skill Levels: Participants included both technical users, such as data analysts, and non-technical users, such as business stakeholders, to capture a wide range of perspectives.
• Global Representation: The recruitment process accounted for geographic diversity, ensuring feedback reflected cultural and regional differences in usability expectations.
• Pre-Screening: Participants were pre-screened to verify their familiarity with similar tools and their potential alignment with the Resilience Index’s target audience.
This approach ensured that feedback addressed a variety of use cases and highlighted design improvements that could benefit all users.
Task-Based Testing
Tasks were designed to emulate real-world scenarios, ensuring that the study focused on practical usability challenges.
• Scenario Development: Tasks included retrieving resilience scores for specific countries, navigating the map to center continents, and interpreting trend data in the comparison tool.
• Performance Metrics: Each task was tracked for completion rates, time taken, and self-reported difficulty scores. These metrics provided quantitative insights into the tool’s usability.
• Flexibility in Approaches: Participants were encouraged to use their preferred methods, such as search bars or manual navigation, to complete tasks. This highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of different interface pathways.
By observing task performance, I gained actionable insights into how users naturally approached the tool and where they encountered friction.
Live Feedback Collection
Gathering real-time insights was a critical component of the usability study, providing a deeper understanding of user behaviors and frustrations.
• Think-Aloud Protocols: Participants verbalized their thoughts as they completed tasks, revealing their expectations, confusion, and decision-making processes.
• Screen Recordings: Visual recordings of user interactions captured detailed data on navigation patterns, clicks, and errors, supplementing verbal feedback.
• User Quotes: Notable comments, such as “I expected the help icon to be in the header” or “Scrolling is confusing because it sometimes zooms the map,” provided direct evidence of user pain points.
These combined methods ensured a rich dataset of user behaviors, which was instrumental in identifying recurring challenges and misconceptions.
Data Analysis
I synthesized feedback from multiple sources to prioritize usability challenges and propose targeted design solutions.
• Quantitative Metrics: Task success rates, difficulty scores, and average completion times provided measurable indicators of usability performance.
• Qualitative Insights: Verbal feedback and screen recordings were analyzed for recurring themes, such as difficulties locating the help area or interpreting pie charts.
• Prioritization Framework: Issues were categorized by impact and frequency to determine which challenges required immediate resolution versus iterative refinement.
This analysis not only highlighted the most pressing usability concerns but also provided a clear roadmap for implementing meaningful design changes.
Solutions Delivered
The new FM.com offers a scalable digital foundation that reflects FM’s modern identity and leadership in the insurance industry.
Solution #1
Enhanced Discoverability
Improved visual hierarchy and interaction design for key features, such as the help area and data filters, to ensure users could quickly locate essential tools.
Solution #2
Intuitive Navigation
Streamlined scrolling and zoom functionalities on the world map, reducing friction for users exploring resilience data geographically.
Solution #3
Data Interpretation Aids
Added contextual tooltips and hover states for graphs, simplifying the process of understanding complex data points like pie charts and trend lines.
Solution #4
Persistent Category Headers
Enabled static headers in the “View Data” dashboard, improving usability for tasks requiring extensive scrolling.
Results
The redesigned FM.com launched successfully in July 2024, receiving praise for its professionalism, adaptability, and collaboration.
Adaptability in Action
Users report significant time savings and improved productivity through optimized scheduling recommendations.
Empowering Teams
The design system streamlined workflows and provided teams with a scalable, adaptable foundation for future projects.
Enhanced Brand Perception
FM.com now serves as a professional, unified digital platform, strengthening FM’s global reputation and aligning its digital presence with its industry leadership.