Backbone: Task Manager

Lose the day planner. Backbone allows you to easily centralize your tasks, milestones, cut dates, and shipping calendar. Correlated directly to both the products you make and the inventory you supply, Backbone provides greater visibility than ever to show where you are in the production process.

Client

Backbone PLM

Platform

Desktop

Role

Lead Product Designer

Year

2018

01

Research & Discovery

Personas

Sarah Clabo

Age:
30
Occupation:
Designer
Level:
Intermediate

Pain Points

  • Get's bogged down when other teammates' tasks appear on the user's board.
  • The system does not alert the user when a task has been updated.
  • Unable to attach and share documents and other files on the user's assigned tasks.

Goals

  • Monitor only the tasks that are associated with his Backbone login.
  • Receive alerts when a task is running past due, is assigned to him, gets canceled, etc.
  • Functionality to share files with his colleagues and other team members associated with a task.

Needs

  • Personalized task dashboard that filters all tasks he's not associated with.
  • Add new notification definitions correlating with tasks.
  • Incorporate more status types to the status section of a task.
  • Add visual queues that reveal if a task is past-due.
  • File management database where the user can attach any file to the task and share it with the associated users.

Nancy Dreyer

Age:
36
Occupation:
Managerial
Level:
Expert

Pain Points

  • Unable to assign tasks to other users.
  • When users complete a task, there is no in-app alert alerting the managerial users.
  • Unlike other project tracking applications, the system does not allow the user to explore the data in any other view than the task view. 

Goals

  • Ability to assign tasks to the members she manages, while remaining attached to the task.
  • Receive in-app notifications when a task she manages has been changed in any form.
  • Manage the tasks utilizing industry-standard views seen in other project management applications such as calendar view, Kanban view, and Gantt view.

Needs

  • Sharing section that will allow her to share the tasks with users in the Backbone system.
  • Add new types of notifications correlating with the tasks.
  • Add new notification definitions correlating with tasks.
  • Multiple views to experience the task data.
  • Data needs to be structured in order to prepare for Gantt charts.

Victoria Klein

Age:
40
Occupation:
Executive
Level:
Beginner

Pain Points

  • There is no visibility on the projects and their current timeframe.
  • Inability to associate a task with a product or component currently in their release pipeline.

Goals

  • Monitor the current start and due date of a project utilizing an easy-to-digest visual format, such as a calendar or Gantt chart.
  • Ability to watch a task in order to be alerted when the task has been edited.
  • Link products and components to a task so the product's status can be linked to the task's status.

Needs

  • Detailed calendar view that visually displays the task.
  • Visual differentiation of events versus task items on the calendar view.
  • Filters, Sorts, and Search functionality so the user can instantly find the data they need.
  • Task function that allows the user to watch/favorite a task in order to receive task notifications.
  • Plug in all Product Library and Component Library data into the task creation flow.
  • Product Summary functionality that allows the user to view the data provided from the task, including status, projected release (due date completion), shared files, etc.

User Flows

02

Final Designs