One place to ask, many systems behind it
Cosmote employees made requests through a maze of systems. Research showed that one common screen for everyone would not work, and the product became a role-based dashboard, tested and refined across several prototype rounds before it shipped.
- Collaborative
- Designer, Linakis Digital
- Autumn 2017 – early 2018
My role
Collaborative, hands-on lead · Designer, Linakis Digital, working in-house at Cosmote. I owned the research, its synthesis and the solution design. My agency colleague, responsible for the account, took an active part in the design process. We worked inside Cosmote, speaking directly with the people who would use the product.
A request, a system, a phone call
Cosmote employees used different processes and systems depending on what they needed, from a parking space or leave to budgets and approvals. Each request needed approval by hierarchy or by role. The brief asked for one front end inside the company intranet, covering eight functions: request submission, tasks, pending requests, history, notifications, reports, administration and a management dashboard. The underlying systems would stay; the experience of starting and managing requests had to become one.
What people actually did
We interviewed people across the organization before defining any solution:
7/10
7 of 10 did not know which system a request lived in. They learned by word of mouth.
- followed up almost every electronic request with a phone call.
- 9/10
- did not use the help manuals.
- 9/10
Requests could only be found by ID, their status was invisible across approval steps, and nobody knew whether an approver had even seen a request. Managers needed to supervise teams across locations, see who was absent and when, approve in bulk and reassign work.
One screen for everyone would not work
The early direction was a common interface for all employees. The research challenged it: an employee mainly needed something specific, like leave within their team, while managers and directors needed budget overviews and other managerial data. A single fixed interface could not serve every level.
The answer was a modular dashboard: a system of widgets for information, actions and requests, combined differently for each role and rearrangeable by the user.
- An employee: their own requests first
- A manager: the budget and the team first, here in dark
What testing changed
Each screen had defined goals, guidance questions and applicable roles. Moderated sessions tested the design across several prototype rounds:
- People chose categories over keyword search
5/5
both ways kept, with guidance. - Nobody used the header notifications
5/5
content tailored to each person. - Managers wanted to return a task for correction with a reason
3/3
a correction action with a justification field. - Managers needed one calendar for all absences
3/3
an absence calendar with day, month and year views. - Managers wanted to reorder the dashboard
3/3
drag-and-drop sorting. - People confused requests with tasks
3/5
an in-product onboarding guide, CosmoWiz, helped new users understand and navigate the new system.
The product
- The widget dashboard
- The approver view
- The request flow
The widget dashboard. Leave, overtime, travel, training, petty cash, supplies and budget widgets, each with a drill-down and a hand-off to the underlying system. Light and dark.
The approver view. Pending requests, items needing attention, a monthly summary, and bulk approve, reject or edit.
The request flow. Find a request by category or search, or start from favourites. Choose or change the approver. Send. Track.
What changed
The platform shipped, and Cosmote stakeholders later gave positive feedback. No usage figures are available.
- 8
- 7
Reflection
Much of my earlier work leaned on experience, intuition and established patterns. This project connected research, evidence, design decisions and validation in one loop, and it changed how I approach design.