Underlying issues


The existing application suffered from lack of design and interaction consistency, unfriendly error messages, awkward nested frames, poor scalability, and no ability to search by keyword. Our work began with user scenarios and requirements. Then we began wireframing the entire site -- starting with simple interactions like logging in all the way to managing users, permissions, and file uploads

The redesign


Our redesign brings clarity and visual impact to this relatively simple application. The top banner is modular and easy to customize with the end-client's picture, name, and locality. Instead of an awkward folder structure, we designed a table format were users can drill down to nested files or choose to see only files within a particular folder. Icons help illustrate selected tools and features and add visual interest.

Smart tables


One pain point in the old design was the crowded table format, which might cram up to 10 columns of data in the available width. Our solution was to default to fewer columns when the page initially loads, but give users the option to show extra columns of data. This toggle function means that the majority of users see a nicely formatted, easy to scan table -- but expert users can still access the extra detail they need.

The final product


Everywhere in the application we strove to enhance user experience by making the system friendlier and more transparent. We consulted often with Sewell's developers to make sure our HTML/CSS/javascript-coded templates would work with their back-end system. The application was relaunched in December 2009.