Case Study 04 · 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
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
Dell INC home dashboard after redesign, tile-based navigation with color-coded categories
After, tile-based navigation, color-coded categories, integrated Favorites

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 · OptimalSort · Mazecard sort, tree test, usability test

Note: names, workflow details, and screen interfaces have been modified to maintain Dell's confidentiality.
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

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 to find sales tools, operational reports, and analytics dashboards. But the navigation had grown cluttered, the visual language felt dated, and employees relied on memorized routes (or browser bookmarks) just to reach the reports they used every day. Misclicks were common, adoption was flat, and the platform's slowness rippled into every team that touched it. The goal: rearchitect the IA so people could find what they needed without memorizing the menu.

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 comprehensive 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, not just stakeholder asks.

✅

Fulfill business goals

🎯

Find and solve pain points

🔍

Identify user needs and frustrations

✨

Enhance the overall experience

"Honestly, it's like finding a needle in a haystack trying to find the right report. It's beyond frustrating."
participant, user interview
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
Method 1 · Qualitative

User Interviews, going deep with 9 employees

In-depth interviews with nine individuals across roles and experience levels. The goal: get specific pain points, desired features, and the actual perception of INC from people who used it daily.

"Honestly, it's like finding a needle in a haystack trying to find the right report. It's beyond frustrating." participant, user interview

Key insights

😖
Information overload

Volume of information without clear organization. Users felt buried.

🔍
Hard to find anything

Locating specific reports or tools was the most-cited pain point.

🪟
Outdated design

The visual language was perceived as dated, created a poor first impression.

⚙️
Limited customization

People wanted dashboards and views tailored to their actual roles.

Method 2 · Qualitative

Contextual Inquiry, watching the work happen

Beyond interviews, I observed users in their natural work environments. Watching the actual click paths exposed friction patterns that interviews alone couldn't surface, the workarounds users had built without realizing it.

Key insights

🧭
Inefficient workflows

Multiple clicks and detours just to complete the most common tasks.

🚧
Reliance on workarounds

Users had built their own systems to bypass the platform's limitations.

🤷
No contextual relevance

The info shown wasn't always relevant to the user's role or current task.

Method 3 · Quantitative

Survey, validating at scale

After the qualitative phase, I ran a survey reaching thousands of INC users, to validate the patterns I'd seen in the small-sample work, and to surface anything that only showed up at scale.

Key insights

🏷️
Outdated labels

A significant portion found tool and report labels confusing or stale.

📑
Duplicate content

Confirmed redundant reports and tools, created unnecessary confusion.

⏳
Slow loading times

Slow pages and reports were directly impacting productivity.

📊
Weak analytics

Available analytics tools were insufficient for many users' needs.

Synthesis

From insights to action

Ten-plus insights, three methods. I ran the findings through an Ishikawa diagram and a prioritization matrix to identify what was actually causing the most pain, versus what just felt loud. Two root causes emerged.

Ishikawa Diagram Prioritization Matrix

Most user frustrations traced back to two root causes, both structural, both addressable through redesign:

Click fatigue

The excessive number of clicks required to navigate and access information made every task feel cumbersome and slow, even for experienced users.

Visual dissonance

The outdated visual design, weak hierarchy, and inconsistent layout left users disoriented and undermined the platform's credibility.

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

Sales reps and analysts knew where their reports lived but still had to walk through the same nested menus daily. The interface treated every report as equal weight, surfaced nothing based on what people actually used.

"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 mark frequently-used reports and tools as favorites. The home tiles then surface those favorites as one-click destinations, bypassing the menu entirely. Workflow efficiency improves because the steps required to reach critical information drop dramatically.

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

Reports dropdown inside each tile

Beyond Favorites, each home tile gained a Reports dropdown that exposes the underlying reports list. Users jump straight to a specific report from the home screen, no need to open the full Reports page first. Fewer clicks, less context switching.

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 nav lets users move to any section from any page in two states, a compact icon-only rail (default) and an expanded view with full category names and sub-items. No more backtracking through breadcrumbs to switch context.

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

Stripped the image-based background that was competing with foreground content. Replaced it with a clean, neutral surface so essential info becomes the focus. Background images often fight with what's in front of them, removing it sharpens the entire visual hierarchy.

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

Color-coded tiles + icons

Replaced the uniform layout with a tile-based system where each sub-organization gets a unique tile color and category icon. Users now identify their section at a glance, Customer Financial Services in one accent, Operations in another, and so on. Visual distinction without extra labeling.

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 I'd do differently: start the accessibility audit at wireframe, not at polish, the dated palette needed structural fixes
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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