This case study demonstrates how user-centered design principles can transform complex enterprise tools into intuitive experiences. By centralizing information and making it possible to edit multiple rows/columns/cells simultaneously, we drastically reduced the number of clicks necessary throughout the process of creating and revising a composite report.
This case study demonstrates how user-centered design principles can transform complex enterprise tools into intuitive experiences. You'll learn how targeted UX research led to practical solutions for power users, how to balance advanced functionality with usability, and how thoughtful information architecture can dramatically reduce cognitive load in specialized software. Whether you're interested in enterprise UX, reporting tools, or redesigning complex systems, this study offers actionable insights into my approach to solving challenging design problems.
Problem: Workday's Composite Reports tool, while powerful, suffered from complex workflows requiring excessive clicks, causing user frustration and high implementation costs.
Solution: I redesigned the authoring experience with centralized features, streamlined workflows, and reusable components, reducing cognitive load while maintaining advanced functionality.
Impact: The new design reduced report creation time by 40%, lowered the learning curve for new users, and significantly improved customer satisfaction by transforming a frustrating experience into an intuitive one.
Creating complex reports shouldn't feel like climbing a mountain.
When I joined the Workday team, the Composite Reports feature was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it offered incredible power and flexibility for complex reporting needs. On the other, it was causing significant headaches for the very people who relied on it most.
Report writers were spending hours navigating through disjointed interfaces, clicking through endless configuration screens, and struggling to maintain reports over time. This wasn't just a minor inconvenience—it was directly impacting Workday's bottom line through increased implementation costs and decreased customer satisfaction.
The challenge was clear: How could we maintain all the powerful functionality that made Composite Reports valuable while dramatically improving the experience of creating and maintaining these reports?