case study

Centurion, crypto-mining hardware management web app

Improving the usability of a dashboard and optimizing the task flow

My role:

UX Researcher, UX Designer, UI Designer

The team:

Lead developer/Co-owner, DevOps Engineer/Co-owner

The Centurion dashboard on desktop and laptop

Results:

82.5%

SUS increased from 62.5% originally

40%

Quicker farm configuration flow

35.5

Seconds on average to configure a single farm, instead of initial 59 seconds

overview

2 Weeks to define the problem, improve the configuration flow and redesign the user interface

The Centurion is a web application for managing mining farms (miners, rigs, mining units, mining hardware). It was developed by the two crypto enthusiasts to solve the problem of tedious manual mining farms configuration.

When I joined this startup, the MVP was already 70% hard coded. My job was to find potential problems, solve them, and redesign the interface to make it look modern.

Being low on time, our team managed to identify the main problem, propose and prioritize the implementation of features, and make improvements to the usability of the application.

The Centurion dashboard before redesign

Before redesign

The Centurion dashboard after redesign

After redesign

challenges

Vague problem and two weeks to deliver a solution

Vague problem

As part of the initial stakeholder meeting, I learned that the problem was unclear, and the company wanted to move extremely fast. They planned to release the MVP in one month.

Tech constraint

70% of the app has been built out already, and with the time constraint, there was practically no room to maneuver. It meant I had to redesign without significantly disrupting the flow and layout.

Other challenges

The Centurion had its brand established, but there was no design system to leverage, which could help me save time on building prototypes for usability testing.

The Centurion screens isometric view

opportunities

Redesign the interface and reduce farm configuration flow time

Understand users’ pain points and improve them

To get a true feeling of what's standing in the way of users' goals, I had to research a typical day of a crypto miner, which information is crucial for them, and what problems they face when using the Centurion.

Optimize the configuration time

Reducing the time of a configuration task flow would seriously improve the usability of the application. If a user had multiple farms, it would take a lot of time to configure and manage them.

Improve the application UI for enhanced usability

Making the app interface look modern, clean, and aesthetic was also a significant part of my job. The UI should not just look good - it has to be a medium between users and information.

A dashboard consists of farms, configurations and farm stats. Users can change configuration of farms in the dashboard.Analyzing dashboard elements, download Optio (a module that must be installed on mining hardware), Configuration dropdown box and Controls.A brief scheme of how Centurion works with steps written by hand

Initial stakeholder meeting notes

Solution

The redesigned dashboard allows users to manage their rigs 40% faster

Defining the right problem

I interviewed stakeholders and users who tested the Centurion previously. According to the interview results, users were confused by the dashboard elements, and they "had to guess" whether to press the "play" or "check" button. Additionally, the SUS questionnaire results showed a score of 62.5, which meant that the app could use some improvements to become more user-friendly.

Research and hypothesis summary
User and stakeholders interview summary
Original design system usability score calculation, SUS 62.5
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Research findings slides (press an image to enlarge)

Summarizing the research insights

To understand better what the pains and needs of users are, what they feel when using the Centurion software and what value the software provides, I created several artifacts that I used later: user personas, empathy, and user journey maps.

Entry-level user, Optimistic John. 25 years old. Has less than 10 mining rigs. His mining experience is 2 years. His main pain point is manual configuration of farms. His goal is to increase the number of farms and mine more coins.
John's empathy map
The Centurion user flow
Centurion user journey map before redesign. Users get frustrated at the point of applying new configuration to the farm. This is a good opportunity point to improve the experience.
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Research artifacts slides (press an image to enlarge)

Brainstorming, prioritizing, rapid prototyping, and testing

Supported by research findings, and having a vision of who our users are and what frustrates them while using the software, I started thinking of possible approaches to solve the problem. How could the dashboard interface be improved so users could configure and manage their farms effeciently to make the most from their performance?

The main issue was that the control buttons' functionality was unclear to the users, and they had to guess which button to press to apply the configuration, and it had to be taken care of instantly.

I created two low-fidelity prototypes using brand colors and typography to conduct A/B testing and new SUS evaluation with previous users.

The testing results showed that prototype B was better because it involved one configuration step less than A, with a SUS of 87.5. Prototype A received a SUS 82.5. Considering the results, the team decided to move on with version A because it was easier to implement.

Centurion feature prioritization matrix
3 Variants of redesigning the dashboard in order to improve UX on the whiteboard
A/B prototypes ready for testing
Prototype A testing results, SUS 82.5
Prototype B testing results, SUS 87.5
New user journey map after redesign
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Brainstorm to testing results slides (press an image to enlarge)

Hi-fidelity prototype

During the testing I received a recommendation from the participants that the confirmation modal window is redundant. If a user had many rigs to configure, selection and confirmation every time would become tedious, so I decided to transform it to the configuration success/fail flash notice.

While working on the hi-fidelity prototype, I paid a specific attention to the accessibility of the app. I improved the size of the elements, their contrast, alignment, target areas, and adding labels and tooltips where needed.

In order to provide better interaction I animated certain elements like: sidebar, sidebar tabs, toggle and other interactive elements.

High-fidelity prototype

View in Figma

outcome

Configuration time reduced by 40%, SUS increased by 20 points from 62.5 to 82.5

We succeeded in reducing the configuration time task and usability improvement. The app received a modern look, but there were a lot of improvements to work on: For example, it didn't support assigning a single configuration to multiple rigs simultaneously. That could negatively affect users' performance if they had more than ten farms. So we had to take care of this issue in the future.

During this project, I learned that solving a specific problem for a client can lead to a beginning of a greater challenge. The ability to recognize it as quickly as possible - that's what makes the most impact on a project's success. Rapid prototyping with design systems can always come in handy to try new features quickly and discover valuable insights from testing participants.

Looking for a UX/UI Designer for your company? Your design team needs help with UX/UI/Prototyping/Testing/Research/etc? I’m here to help. Full-time or contract, remote or local (Philadelphia Area)

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