Users face delays from lengthy data preparation, slow and unclear reviewer feedback, and limited access to real-time EHR data.
66% of the participants seek role-specific dashboards to ease daily tasks, and 83% of the participants are open to adopting new digital tools.
BRAND
RESPONSIBILITIES
Lead Product Designer
User research
Design system
Prototyping
Usability testing
UI/UX QA before production
CREDITS
PM Daniela Lattner
Teach Lead Avitan Barnes
:Digitizing Manual Workflows
Strategic MVP design achieves 89% usability success within real-world constraints
Learning the importance of balancing functionality and development effort
Overview
Data Access Portal is a comprehensive, digitized data catalog designed for applicants, reviewers, and admins to streamline the entire research data workflow, enabling real-time collaboration, improved transparency, and enhanced efficiency.
89%
Task success rate observed in usability testing
Challenges
Design a scalable MVP that digitizes the full data access process, balancing a high volume of structured content with clarity and usability.
The solution needed to streamline role-specific workflows while maintaining consistency, minimize cognitive load through intuitive UI, and ensure clear validation feedback to reduce errors.
A key challenge was managing collaborator visibility and communication to avoid submission delays, all while prioritizing core functionality within MVP constraints.
User Research & Insights
Prior to design, I conducted interviews and surveys with clinical users and data professionals.
Key findings included:
User Persona
User Flowchart
User Journey
User testing outcomes:
After two rounds of iterative user testing, improvements led to an 89% success rate in the final round, prompting the team to move forward with this version to production.
Design solutions
Designed intuitive filtering and selection tools for browsing the data catalog, drilling down into specific datasets, and submitting tailored access requests.
Introduced a wizard-style form broken into intuitive sections,
helping users focus step-by- step and track their progress.
Added real-time validation with tooltip explanations and visual error highlights to prevent submission-blocking mistakes.
Solved the challenge of pending collaborator registration by displaying a clear visual indication both within the input field for each assigned collaborator and on the summary page, so the user knows exactly which collaborator must register before submission.
Designed a summary page with visual indicators for unresolved sections and one-click navigation to fix issues.
Added a reviewer-applicant chat, enabling direct feedback loops inside the platform.
Initially, reviewer feedback was collected in a section at the end of the application.
In MVP Phase 2, I introduced inline commenting, allowing reviewers to leave feedback directly within each relevant section.
This helped applicants quickly understand where and what to revise.
Reviewer feedback for Phase 2
Built an admin list management to manage reviewer assignments that limits reviewer selection to a predefined, role-specific list, ensuring that only qualified reviewers can be assigned to each application type, streamlining task management and preventing misassignment.
Outcome Highlights
As this was an MVP release, quantitative data is limited, however, early usability testing and qualitative feedback point to strong product-market fit and user satisfaction.
89% task success rate observed in usability testing, indicating that users were able to complete key workflows with minimal friction.
Positive early feedback from both applicants and reviewers on the intuitive layout, especially the structured application wizard and task tracking capabilities.
Reflection
Designed a focused MVP for the Data Access Portal by prioritizing essential interactions and deferring non-critical features.
Simplified complex workflows through progressive forms and real-time feedback, enabling confident user progression.
Integrated collaboration and reviewer input to support organizational needs and build trust. Usability testing confirmed that a lean approach can still deliver strong user value.