Case Study

Client: PowerSteering Software

Project: PowerSteering Web Application

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Overview

PowerSteering is a web-based project portfolio management solution that allows senior executives to align local, regional, national, and global projects and corporate initiatives with their business goals and objectives. By providing "line-of-sight" visibility into the portfolio, business managers can make more effective project investment decisions, reduce costs, prioritize projects, identify risks and solve issues in real-time.

Chroma Design was engaged by PowerSteering to redesign existing portions of their Web-based application according to usability requirements and guidelines provided by PowerSteering. Additionally, Chroma was hired to design new portions of the application. Aspects of the application that Chroma Design successfully designed include:

Authentication tools
Team member collaboration space
Team member communication tools
Real-time visibility and project status tracking
Task delegation
Document collection and display
Issue tracking and resolution
Search capability

Process

As Powersteering had already conducted its own usability research, Chroma Design followed a streamlined process that relied on our client's usability findings and requirements. Additionally, Powersteering’s own project management software was used for the project since Chroma Design and Powersteering are located in different cities.

The first stage in the project was to create high-level information architecture documents that mapped and organized the application. Critical use cases were charted and the UI was adapted to meet all use case needs. The end-result of the IA work was to simplify the complex, multi-tiered application.

Next, a series of prototypes were created of ever-increasing fidelity. Concept-level prototypes evolved into highly refined final prototypes. Finally, the UI wireframes were provided an aesthetic that matched the client’s brand and visual guidelines. The end-result was an aesthetically pleasing and appropriate UI that met usability guidelines, client requirements, and end-user satisfaction.

Results

During the design process, Chroma Design successfully implemented a number of usability design features into the PowerSteering application. These included:

An improved navigation system that included convenient shortcuts to frequently used and critical portions of the software
A simplified layout that minimized the number of objects on the page to improve recognition
Consistency of style within the whole application to allow users to recognize the application as a whole
Unique iconography to facilitate reading at a glance
Highlighting important tasks within the application; placing advanced and less commonly used functionality on secondary pages