Leading a Design Journey to Craft a Unifying ERP Portal

Summary

As Acting Creative Director, I led an eight-month ERP redesign for a regional grocery retailer, overseeing the delivery of more than 160 high-fidelity screens tailored to four core user personas. The project replaced fragmented legacy systems with a unified, scalable portal that streamlined key business workflows.

I partnered closely with a strategy manager and client stakeholders to translate complex business requirements into clear design direction. My responsibilities included aligning client expectations, defining project roadmaps, facilitating stakeholder workshops, and managing daily design activities. Additionally, I directly mentored and guided a UI designer, elevating his UX skills, business fluency, and professional growth. The engagement earned strong client satisfaction and laid the foundation for future design initiatives.

Collaborating with the client to craft personas

Example of a high-level sprint plan from the design roadmap

Challenge

The client, a large regional grocery chain, relied on fragmented ERP tools including legacy command line systems, isolated department applications, and numerous manual workarounds. This patchwork created significant operational inefficiencies, increased cognitive load on users, and limited collaboration across teams.

The business needed a unified, role-specific ERP portal to consolidate workflows, eliminate departmental redundancies, and enhance decision-making through improved data visibility. However, achieving this goal required untangling existing workflows, which was particularly challenging due to inconsistent documentation and differing processes across departments.

Sample of a myriad of current system interfaces that a user needs to navigate daily

Approach

Mapping Complexity into Clarity

To simplify the ERP system's complexity, we distilled findings from ethnographic research into structured visual maps using Miro, a proven method from previous projects. These maps allowed us to iteratively validate our understanding through playback sessions with client stakeholders, surfacing nuanced insights and aligning everyone on clear design objectives.

By using this iterative framework, we facilitated continuous stakeholder input, collaborative revisions, and strengthened their sense of ownership and co-creation. Later, the same visual framework clearly communicated how our redesigned workflows addressed critical pain points, helping stakeholders envision the transformative impact of the new ERP portal.

Example Miro frame where we collaborate with stakeholders to review our observed user flow, understand the reasons behind the task, and identify key data and actions

A new simplified flow based on the learnings, where the system provides alerts and direct links to detailed data for easier analysis, allowing users to anticipate issues rather than manually investigating after they occur

Coaching Design through Business Fluency

A notable challenge arose from a gap in business comprehension between the UI designer and myself due to my previous business background. Initially underestimating the gap, I noticed early design iterations missed important business logic, such as accurately representing sales report hierarchies.

Current sales report where the numbers show "Total Non-Pharmacy" is the sum of the subtotals above and "Grand Total" is the sum of "Total Non-Pharmacy" and "Pharmacy"

An initial draft from the UI designer where visuals for various total rows did not convey the correct hierarchy

To address this, I met individually with him to provide feedback and encourage an environment where he could actively contribute ideas and take ownership of improvements. Recognizing that immediately mastering business concepts was challenging, we developed strategies where I provided deeper explanations of business operations and rationale behind design directions, while he independently researched unfamiliar terms. This targeted mentorship significantly improved his confidence, engagement in workshops, and overall design quality.

Translating Business Requirements into Design Strategy

To convert complex business requirements into actionable designs, I collaborated closely with the strategy manager and client SMEs. Together, we analyzed over 120 user stories, identified overlapping tasks and common interaction patterns, and structured the portal around user objectives rather than departmental silos. This strategic approach ensured consistency across designs while allowing customized experiences per persona, effectively streamlining stakeholder approvals.

Outcome

• Delivered over 160 high-fidelity screens tailored to four distinct user personas.

• Produced comprehensive prototypes, interaction flows, and detailed developer documentation to streamline handoff.

• Achieved high client satisfaction, prompting discussions about future engagements, including vendor portal and mobile ERP initiatives.

Recording of review out-of-stock item flow from Invision prototype