This case study outlines the design process for adding Controls functionality to Workday's Discovery Boards. The feature aimed to solve a significant pain point: viewers of Discovery Boards couldn't interact with or filter data without editing rights, severely limiting their ability to explore data and make decisions.

Introduction

Workday Discovery Boards are powerful tools for data analysis and visualization. However, viewers of these boards have historically had limited ability to interact with the data beyond what the editor pre-configured. This often meant that viewers couldn't easily explore different facets of the data to answer their specific questions without requesting modifications from the board author.

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The goal of this project was to empower Discovery Board viewers by introducing "Controls," a feature that allows editors to expose specific filters and prompts for viewers to manipulate within the view mode, enabling more self-service data exploration.

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****This case study outlines the UX research and design process behind the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of this pivotal feature, highlighting the user feedback that shaped its initial implementation.

This project focused on enhancing the usability and value of Workday Discovery Boards by bridging the gap between the author's pre-defined views and the viewer's need for dynamic data exploration. The "Controls" feature was conceived as a foundational object to enable various critical future capabilities within the platform.

Project Overview

The "Controls" feature was a new functionality in Workday Discovery Boards (DBs) that aimed to empower viewers to interact with and filter board data in view mode, without needing to edit the board themselves. This addressed the limitation where viewers had limited data interaction capabilities, which reduced the overall usefulness of DBs for data-driven decision-making.

The core concept involves DB editors configuring "controls" based on existing data source prompts and sheet/visualization level filters. These controls then appear in a dedicated panel in view mode, allowing viewers to dynamically filter the data according to the editor's defined boundaries.

The Minimal Viable Product (MVP) focuses on:

• Introducing the "control object" as a foundational element.
• Replacing the previously separate "exposed prompts/filters" with "Sheet Controls."
• Providing a simplified way for viewers to explore data.
• Allowing editors to re-order and label controls for clarity.

The Team