One of our clients - a startup based in Frankfurt - contacted us about a new project to design & develop in an extremely short time frame. The main goal was to create an intuitive dashboard containing aggregated KPIs (like most profitable tables, most products sold or annual turnover) relevant to his customers - owners of various types of restaurants, bars and pubs.

They wanted to be able to accurately monitor and analyze data important to their day-to-day business management.

Limited time

The deadline was very close. We had to fit all the work in only two weeks, so our team decided to run with a single bi-weekly design sprint. During that time, we had to prepare not only the wireframes and the design for both dashboard and the landing page, but also html/css templates and code a simple working demo.

To achieve that, we have conducted several remote project meetings and design workshops, to obtain all the necessary information and define the exact business requirements. We chose the team and wrote and assigned all tasks on our scrum board. Within the first couple of days, we have managed to create wireframes, look & feel and choose how to present the data on the dashboard.

With such time constraints, good communication is absolutely critical. Therefore, throughout two weeks time, we were in daily contact with the client, so that each element was consulted and approved on an ongoing basis. Once the low-fidelity wireframes had been approved, we could move on to the next phase.

While our UI & UX team focused on preparing the final design, the developers could concentrate on building a working prototype based on the wireframes. At the end of the second week, everything seemed to be almost in place.

The fruits of good work organisation

Fortunately, the proper planning and distribution of work paid off and allowed us to avoid unpleasant surprises. After receiving the first version of the project, the client asked for a few minor tweaks, which we managed to implement without any major problems before the sprint ended.

In the end, a neat, visually coherent design of both the landing page and the dashboard was made. Each element was discussed and tailored to our client needs, and thanks to our agile developers, the demo application worked just as planned.

Final thought

Projects that are very limited in time can be particularly difficult. Regardless of their size, type of client or technology used, understanding business requirements and proper communication is always at a premium. It can not only save a lot of time and resources, protect the team from exceeding the deadline, but also, in extreme cases, save your company from losing a client.

Jarek Marciniak Senior User Interface & User Experience Designer

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