Stakeholder interviews
Conversations across finance, market, and business teams revealed how a performance question changes with responsibility.
Enterprise performance platform
EPM Next
A financial performance workspace that connects data, context, and conversation—so IBM teams can move from root cause to a shared decision.
Explore
data
Collaborate
in context
Present a
shared story
Project snapshot
Lead product designer · 2023–2024
Research framing, product architecture, interaction design, and prototype direction for an evolving enterprise performance workspace.
01
Define our users
Research framing
Performance data is shared work—not a dashboard for one person.
The research focused on how financial signals move between people: from detailed analysis, to an informed point of view, to a decision leaders can act on. The system had to support each step without losing the evidence behind it.
Stakeholder conversations across finance and market teams
Research activities
We traced the journey from a signal in the data to the people responsible for moving it forward.
Workflow inventory
We mapped daily digests, executive summaries, regional reviews, and personal stories to see where context was lost between surfaces.
Role & permission mapping
Clarifying the responsibilities of leaders, advisors, and analysts made differentiated access—and shared artifacts—a core system requirement.
What we synthesised
Signal → context → decisionOne signal becomes a decision through three connected roles.
01Orient & decide
Leaders
Need an immediate read on performance signals, the context behind them, and where a decision is needed.
I need to see what changed, why it matters, and whether we need to act—without opening five different reports.Representative research voice · Leadership review
02Frame & align
Advisors
Turn analysis into a clear point of view, then bring the right narrative to the people who need it.
The number alone never tells the whole story. I need enough context to explain the shift before the conversation moves on.Representative research voice · Business advisory
03Investigate & explain
Analysts
Explore data in depth, validate assumptions, and bring evidence into the broader conversation.
When someone asks where a number came from, I need to retrace the calculation quickly and share the evidence with them.Representative research voice · Performance analysis
02
Map the current reality
As-is scenario & survey
Before a team can act on the data, they have to find their way through the work.
Everyday reporting moments
Survey signals
Survey snapshot
How many people knew how to make a report?
62%
- 16%People knew exactly how to make the report.
- 22%People didn’t know, but learned along the way.
- 62%People didn’t know how to make and visualise the report.
03
Prioritise the opportunity
From evidence to focus
Not every pain point needs the same response—or the same urgency.
We paired user impact with delivery feasibility to identify the work that would make the biggest difference first.
Decision criteria
Balance delivery feasibility with user impact before defining the product focus.
Assess feasibility
Can we make this easier to resolve?
Product, design, and engineering considered technical effort, time, and cost across the reporting workflow.
Very difficultDifficultNormalEasyVery easy
Prioritise impact
Which opportunities are ready to move?
High-impact, feasible improvements formed the first product focus.
Prioritise first
Story viewAnnotationCollaborationArticle templateArticle manageMeaning of graphicInformation organisedCase cardWalk meInformation organizedFocus areas
Three connected areas became the foundation for the solution.They form one continuous path: enter the work with clarity, build a shared understanding, then carry that understanding into a decision.
Turning the prioritised opportunities into a shared product direction.
- 01
Access & setup
Start each role with the right entry point: relevant signals, clear permissions, and enough context to understand where to begin.
Reduce the effort of getting oriented before analysis begins. - 02
Case, story & article
Connect the working layers of analysis so measures, explanations, feedback, and decisions stay together as a story takes shape.
Make context portable instead of rebuilding it across tools. - 03
Presentation
Bring the evidence and point of view into the moments where teams review, discuss, and decide—without losing the thread behind a number.
Turn preparation into a shared, decision-ready narrative.
04
Define the product premise
From research to a product direction
Research showed the work breaks down when evidence, analysis, and discussion live in separate places.
Performance reporting is a shared decision workflow—not just a dashboard.
EPM Next connects a common performance model with the work of understanding, discussing, and acting on a signal—not another surface for reading reports.
Evidence archive
Workshop evidence revealed the gap.
Teams could make reports, but struggled to carry evidence into a shared decision.
Consistent measures and usable progress signals.
Shared workflows and integrated data enabled timely insight.
Synthesised product premise
Turn the evidence into a system that supports the whole reporting job.
The product direction was a deliberate response to the work we observed—not a feature list.
- 01
Financial inputs and reporting handoffs were hard to align across units.
A common performance foundation
Shared measures, role-aware access, and the context behind the number.
One trusted view for every discussion.
- 02
Teams could see the number, but the reason behind it lived in separate files, conversations, and decks.
An evidence-linked reporting workflow
Connect source data, analysis, and narrative in the same working space.
Insight stays with the signal.
- 03
Analysis was too easily rebuilt for every review, often by one person at a time.
A shared decision space
Keep observations, feedback, and follow-up with the performance story.
Faster, better-aligned decisions.
05
Shape the system
Information architecture
A system for carrying context forward.
Three system decisions
- 01
Use one shared performance model
Different roles needed different views, but every view had to draw on the same measures, dimensions, and permissions.
- 02
Carry context through connected objects
A question should stay traceable as it moves from data, to analysis, to a story, then into a shared case.
- 03
Make the structure legible in the moment
Research showed that unfamiliar labels and hidden actions break the flow, so language and interaction needed to do explanatory work.
Research validation
17 beta participants · Study 7 terminology card sort
“They are both nebulous to me, hard to make a distinction between the two.”
The study surfaced terminology as the harder problem: people needed clearer in-product explanation to distinguish Article, Story, and Case.
— Beta participant, analyst/advisor
Core object model
A Case brings together multiple Stories; each Story organises evidence as Articles.Shared foundation · 01
Performance model
Measures · dimensions · permissions
One governed source for every reporting object.Shared decision context · 01
contains 1..n StoriesCase
Holds the question, ownership, related stories, and follow-up.
Data model mapping
Make the underlying data model navigable for people—not just systems.
The Cognos model contained the logic behind performance reporting. I translated its technical dimensions into the filters, views, and levels of detail people use to explore a report.
06
Prototype the reporting loop
Wireframes & interaction
Move from a signal to a shared decision—without losing the trail.
Scenario-based beta research exposed failures at the hand-offs: people missed hidden actions, could not always find deeper evidence, and had trouble understanding new content labels. I iterated the flow around those moments—not just individual screens.
Research-led interaction flowEarly flow map
I mapped the hand-offs before styling individual screens.
The wireframe made the route from Daily digest, to Case, to Story—and then into new evidence—explicit before the final interface.
- 01
Daily digest
Spot the signal
Start with the changes that need attention, rather than a blank reporting surface.
- 02
Case view
Frame the decision
Bring related indicators, stories, and collaborators into one shared decision context.
- 03
Story view
Build a point of view
Connect analysis and narrative so another person can understand what the data is saying.
- 04
Create article
Add evidence in context
Choose and configure the supporting data without leaving the performance story.
- 05
Article + annotations
Discuss the evidence
Keep explanations, feedback, and source data together around the same observation.
- 06
Presentation
Bring the point of view to review
Carry the evidence and narrative into the meeting where a decision is made.
What testing changed
Evidence from beta research guided the next interaction decisions.
- 17 / 20
Observed
People missed “Add new” without a cue.
Response: make creation actions explicit, contextual, and easy to find. - 8 / 8
Validated
People understood a concise case invitation and acted on it quickly.
Response: keep collaboration messages direct, with one clear action. - 10 / 11
Observed
People could not define an Article as a business fact.
Response: use clearer language and explain the Article, Story, and Case hierarchy in context.
Interaction deep dive
Article creation turned a hidden action into an explicit way to add evidence.
The final modal brings data selection, dimensions, filters, and calculations into the Story—without breaking the reporting flow.
Foundations
Carbon tokens and contrast decisions established a consistent dark-modal baseline.
Spacing & behaviour
Layout, selection, and error states were specified before moving into detailed build work.
Responsive states
The article-creation flow was checked across constrained widths, not treated as a desktop-only interaction.
The direction
Clarity is not less complexity. It is giving complexity a place to make sense.
By connecting performance data, narrative, and collaboration in one system, EPM Next gives enterprise teams a calmer, more coherent way to move from insight to action.