How I Redesigned ASO App

And Cut Task Completion Time from 5 Days to Hours

Imagine transforming a daunting, week-long task into a streamlined, hours-long process. That’s exactly what I achieved with the redesign of the JAGGAER Advanced Sourcing Optimizer (ASO) application. As a tool crucial for sourcing professionals to enhance supplier selection and allocation, the ASO faced significant usability challenges—until I overhauled its functionality and user experience.

My role as UX/UI Designer

Work with product managers and designers to conduct user testing and research.
Conducted interviews with users and stakeholders.
Conducted discovery workshops with stakeholders.
Created a UX strategy with the product manager and engineers.
Redesigned application from the ground up.
Created user flows.
Created design system.

Label view screen

Problems

Below is the list of problems I faced when I started redesigning the ASO app:

Old user interface and confusing UX.
The old app look doesn’t fit in the suite of other Jaggaer’s applications.

Steep learning curve
Companies that use the ASO app spend lots of resources to train their employees how to use ASO.

Slow workflow
Due to the complex workflow, users would spend days instead of hours creating workflows (Scenarios), and companies lost thousands of $.

Analysis

Data
I discovered that, on average, 60% of users spend 3 to 5 days creating scenarios and events. Another discovery was that due to the complexity of the cost calculation tool, I also found that 28% of users would revert to using Excel instead of the ASO app.

User Feedback
I found that the functionality the users used for creating reports was manual and lacked comprehensive data elements. When I interviewed users, 95% complained about limiting the number of rule options used to build scenarios and events. Another major complaint was that creating rules was confusing. Users complained about unnecessary and confusing steps to create Events and Scenarios. Once the user started creating events and scenarios, there was no simple way to start over or return to the previous step.

Scenarios manage screen

Goals

Main Project Metrics

Reduce time spent on task compiletion
Remove unnecessary steps and features
Update UI to match other apps in the Jaggaer Suite of apps

Before adding new scenario number of rules need to be applied, which is done on rules screen.

Research
To tackle this problem, I examined competitors and their approaches.

Challenges
Of course, there were some unique challenges to address. Because of the ASO’s complexity and specificity, like the technology used to build the backend, I also had to think about presenting massive data in easy-to-read tables that must load fast. I had to think about consolidating multiple steps into one step.

Solution
I removed confusing steps in event creations, reducing them from 7 to 5. I also reduced the steps in scenario creation from 5 to 2. I introduced consolidated forms with quick navigation for easy event and scenario creation. Redesigned rules and rules configuration pages.

New Scenario creation screen with consolidated forms with quick navigation for easy event and scenario creation.

The cost component was one of the most complex parts of a redesign process. The component features a huge amount of preset complex mathematical formulas. These formulas had to be presented in an easy-to-use view. To add to the complexity, users can create their own cost models and formulas.

Results

Reduced task compilation from 5 days to a few hours
35% increase in user satisfaction
17% reduction in operational cost