Project Overview
Senior leaders need clarity, focus, and speed when making high-impact decisions. The Situational Awareness Dashboard is a product designed to consolidate critical operational insights into a single interface, enabling faster comprehension and proactive response. It visualizes real-time status, temporal context, and detailed event information in a coherent, accessible experience.
Project Scope
- Deliverables: Executive dashboard, High fidelity UI screens, Timeline interaction model, Morning brief interface, Information architecture and layout system, User Training and Support.
- Tools: Illustrator. Photoshop. Dreamweaver. ColdFusion. jQuery. Bootstrap. SQL.
- Role: UI and UX designer. Visual designer. Front end and interface developer. System level product design focused on executive decision support.
The Problem
Executive environments are overloaded with reports, slide decks, and fragmented tools that slow understanding. Leadership workflows often include:
- Large, cumbersome daily briefings
- Reporting across disconnected systems
- Status indicators that lack context
- High cognitive load under time pressure
These patterns reduce situational awareness and delay decisions.
Design Goals
The dashboard was designed to:
- Provide immediate, high-level awareness of multiple operational domains
- Support deeper inspection only when needed
- Make status instantly readable, even for users with varied visual ability
- Replace heavy daily briefs with a lightweight, interactive summary
- Present temporal context across past, present, and near future
Research & Insights
Leadership workflows commonly rely on static artifacts that offer little interaction or temporal perspective. Key insights guiding the design:
- Leaders skim for patterns, not details
- Color alone should not be the sole indicator of status
- Temporal context is vital for understanding momentum
- Lightweight digital delivery increases accessibility
These insights shaped a product optimized for clarity and action.
Key Features
Six Operational Icons
At the top of the interface, six icons represent critical operational areas. They are designed as live status indicators, not decorative marks.
Design priorities:
- Color coded glow for quick visual recognition
- Secondary shapes for accessibility and color-blind support
- Consistent geometry for rapid scanning
- Immediate visibility without interaction
These icons become a visual shorthand for operational health.
Dynamic Timeline
A horizontal timeline gives temporal context and offers continuity from past to future.
Timeline breakdown:
- Yesterday
Completed events appear as clickable blocks for review. - Today
Active events update in real time. - Next Two Days
Upcoming events support anticipation and planning.
This structure encourages leaders to think in terms of progression rather than isolated snapshots.
Detailed Event Views
Each timeline block opens a detailed panel with supporting material. This design separates overview from detail, reducing noise in the main view while enabling deeper analysis on demand.
Event details include:
- Contextual data summaries
- Charts and visuals
- Event-specific reports
This functionality supports both quick checks and deep dives within a consistent interface.
Morning Brief System
The dashboard replaces unwieldy daily slide decks with a configurable digital brief.
Brief construction features:
- Leaders select which operational areas to include
- Internal metrics populate each section
- External context can be integrated
External data examples:
- Market or industry indicators
- News or trend insights
- Competitive context
User submitted content:
- Image slides can be uploaded
- Visuals enhance narrative without increasing file weight
Output is a clean, lightweight HTML page tailored to the day’s priorities.
Design & Interaction Principles
The dashboard’s product design follows core principles:
- Clarity over decoration
High signal, minimal noise - Progressive disclosure
Never overwhelm the user, reveal detail on demand - Inclusive accessibility
Color-blind friendly visuals and clear iconography - Temporal awareness
Time as a central axis of understanding
These principles guided every interaction and layout decision.
Outcome
The Situational Awareness Dashboard delivers:
- Centralized operational insight
- Faster comprehension across domains
- Reduced reliance on heavy slide briefs
- A predictable, repeatable decision support workflow
The design supports leadership needs with visual clarity and interactive depth. It places the right information at the right time, empowering decisions with context, structure, and relevance.