Case Study 05 · Dell INC · Dell Technologies

I led the IA redesign of Dell's internal portal for 30,000+ employees.

A full IA rearchitecture of Dell's Intelligence Nerve Center as the sole UX designer on the project. Three structural moves cut click fatigue, a visual refresh aligned the platform with Dell's brand, and accessibility checks were baked into the process. Findability lifted 40%, misclicks dropped 50%, all grounded in three rounds of research.

Shipped · 2022 Information Architecture Internal Tools Findability Research-led
Dell INC home dashboard after redesign, tile-based navigation with color-coded categories
After, tile-based navigation, color-coded categories, integrated Favorites
The Challenge

Dell's Intelligence Nerve Center, an internal platform for 30,000+ employees, had grown cluttered. Navigation forced too many clicks, the visual language felt dated, and employees relied on memorized routes to reach reports they used every day.

The Solution

A full IA rearchitecture as the sole UX designer on the project. Three structural moves cut click fatigue, a visual refresh aligned the platform with Dell's brand, and accessibility checks were baked into the design process, all grounded in three rounds of research.

90%
User satisfaction
post-launch survey
40%
Findability lift
time to locate reports
20%
Adoption increase
monthly active users
50%
Fewer misclicks
on navigation menus

Role

Sole UX DesignerIA, research, interaction, visual

Team

Dell Technologies1 PM, 4 engineers, 1 designer (me)

Timeline

5 monthsthree research rounds through launch, 2022

Tools

Figma · Figma Make · Claude Design · Copilotdesign, prototyping, and AI-assisted build

Note: names, workflow details, and screen interfaces have been recreated to maintain Dell's confidentiality. The approach, decisions, and outcomes are intact. I chose not to password-gate this case study, since gates only add friction for the people I want to reach. For the real product and a walkthrough, reach out.
Snapshot

The short version.

If you only read three paragraphs, read these. Problem, change, and results in about a minute.

Problem

30,000+ Dell employees relied on INC daily for sales tools, operational reports, and analytics dashboards. Navigation forced too many clicks, the visual language felt dated, and people had quietly stopped using the menu in favor of personal bookmarks.

Change

I led a full IA rearchitecture as the sole UX designer. Three structural moves cut click fatigue: tile-based nav with in-tile report dropdowns, a persistent side rail with Favorites, and color-coded categories. A visual refresh aligned the platform with Dell's brand.

Results

Measured against the pre-redesign baseline, findability lifted 40%, misclicks dropped 50%, monthly active users rose 20%, and post-launch satisfaction reached 90%. The tile-based nav and Favorites patterns shipped became reference work for adjacent internal tools at Dell.

Problem area

What is INC.

30,000+ Dell employees relied on INC daily for sales tools, reports, and dashboards. But the nav had grown cluttered and dated, so people reached their everyday reports by memorized routes and browser bookmarks. Misclicks were common and adoption was flat.

Before, Dell INC's original interface showing cluttered navigation and dated visual treatment
Before, cluttered nav, image-heavy background, no surfaced shortcuts
The Ask

A full redesign, solo

I was the sole UX designer on the project. The brief: modernize the look and feel, make the platform scalable for future growth, and most importantly, make it easier for employees to access the tools and reports they need every day.

Revamp the website

Make it scalable

Adhere to Dell branding

Fix usability issues

Add/remove features

My Priorities

What I held myself to

Beyond the business brief, I set four priorities for myself going into the project, to keep the redesign honest about user needs, beyond the stakeholder asks.

Fulfill business goals

Find and solve pain points

Identify user needs and frustrations

Enhance the overall experience

Research

Three methods, ten+ insights

To understand what was actually breaking for users, I ran three rounds of research, qualitative depth (interviews + contextual inquiry) and quantitative validation (a wide survey). Triangulating across methods kept the synthesis honest.

3
Research methods
interviews · contextual inquiry · survey
10+
Key insights
surfaced across all three methods
2
Root causes
click fatigue · visual dissonance
"Honestly, it's like finding a needle in a haystack trying to find the right report. It's beyond frustrating." participant, user interview

What kept showing up across all three methods

Hard to find anything

The most-cited pain. Reports and tools lived behind nested menus.

Inefficient workflows

Common tasks took three to five clicks. Familiarity didn't help.

Outdated visual language

The design read a generation behind Dell's brand.

Personal workarounds

Users had bookmarked their way around the platform.

Run through an Ishikawa diagram and prioritization matrix, ten-plus insights traced back to two structural root causes: click fatigue and visual dissonance. The next two sections are how I addressed each.

Problem 1

Click fatigue

Employees needed quick access to a small set of reports they used every day. The platform forced them through three to five clicks to reach each one, every time. Familiarity didn't help because the structure itself was the problem.

Insight

The shortest path to a report shouldn't be a memorized route

Reps knew exactly where their reports lived but still walked the same nested menus every day. The structure weighted every report equally and surfaced nothing by actual use.

"The number of clicks needed to reach the report slows me down. It disrupts my workflow and feels inefficient, even though I'm familiar with the site." Matt, Data Engineer, Dell
The Solution

A three-pronged approach

01

Favorites on the home screen

Users pin their everyday reports, and the home tiles surface them as one-click destinations, bypassing the menu entirely.

Sales Performance Hub tile with Reports and Favourites dropdowns expanded, showing Favorite tool and Favorite webpage options
02

Reports dropdown inside each tile

Each tile gained a Reports dropdown, so users jump straight to a specific report from the home screen instead of opening the full Reports page first.

Home tile dropdown showing list of reports, Report 1, Report 2, Report 3, accessible directly from the tile
03

Universal side navigation

A persistent side rail, compact by default and expandable to full categories, moves users to any section from any page with no breadcrumb backtracking.

Collapsed icon-only side navigation rail Expanded side navigation showing categories, Sales Support Modernization with sub-items like Operations, Reporting, PAG Operations, COD/DA, Customer Financial Services, Partner Operations, Analytics, Global Backlog Orders, Services Finance, Infrastructure Solution Group, BES, SDS, SSC
Problem 2

Visual dissonance

The platform's visual language was a generation behind Dell's brand. An image-heavy background fought with the foreground content. Tiles all looked the same, no visual cues for which category you were in. Employees felt the platform was beneath the company.

Insight

An internal product still represents the company to its own people

Internal tools often get the leftover budget for visual care. But the people using them every day form an opinion about how seriously the org takes their work, and the INC interface was telling employees the answer was "not very."

"This UI needs a modern refresh that reflects our brand and showcases our capabilities, with intuitive navigation that can grow with us." Gayathri, Director, Dell
The Solution

A focused visual refresh

01

Background removal

Swapped the busy image background for a clean neutral surface, so the content becomes the focus and the whole hierarchy sharpens.

After background removal, clean neutral surface with foreground tiles and clear navigation
02

Color-coded tiles + icons

Each sub-org gets its own tile color and category icon, so people spot their section at a glance, no extra labeling needed.

Three example tiles, Customer Financial Services, Operations, Report Name, each with a unique color accent and icon
Accessibility

Baked into the process

Accessibility wasn't a final-stage check. It lived inside the iteration loop. Every design pass went through contrast, keyboard, and screen reader scrutiny. The blue color used for some interactive states didn't pass contrast on the first iteration; I adjusted before it ever reached engineering.

Contrast checks Keyboard navigation Screen reader compatibility Iterative refinement
Final design

Putting it all together

The pieces (Favorites, Reports dropdown, side navigation, refreshed visual language) assembled into a cohesive product. Three views from the shipped redesign showing how the structural and visual changes work together in practice.

Final design, home dashboard with color-coded tiles, surfaced favorites, and side navigation
Final design, interior view with expanded side nav and tile content
Final design, reports view with the new visual treatment
Key outcomes

Measured against the pre-redesign baseline

90%
User satisfaction
post-launch survey
40%
Findability lift
time to locate reports
20%
Adoption increase
monthly active users
50%
Fewer misclicks
on navigation menus
Retrospective

What I took from this.

Two layers of impact that don't show up in the metrics. The work that shaped how I designed it, and the patterns the team kept using after I shipped.

Impact on me

IA is less about taxonomy than about restoring trust.

Employees had stopped using the menu and were navigating by bookmarks. Re-earning their trust meant proving the new structure could outperform a personal shortcut, every single time. That's why we validated the IA three times before pixels, not after.

  • 3 research rounds: card sort, tree test, prototype usability
  • 21 participants across sales, ops, and analytics
  • What didn't work: the first interactive blues failed contrast at the polish stage, and the dated palette needed structural fixes, not touch-ups
  • What I'd do differently: start the accessibility audit at wireframe, not at polish
Impact on process

Patterns the platform team reused.

INC was the most heavily used internal surface at Dell, so the IA decisions and the research artifacts both became templates for adjacent platforms. Teams that owned other internal tools pulled directly from this work instead of standing up their own studies.

  • Tile-based nav and in-tile report dropdown adopted by two adjacent internal tools
  • Favorites pattern reused on the Dell sales portal redesign
  • Card-sort and tree-test playbook adopted as the default for IA work at Dell
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