.png)
Led the end-to-end redesign of a complex B2B SaaS platform in the data exchange space, transforming Sedex's user experience to address the growing challenges of managing intricate supplier networks through innovative, user-centric solutions.
Sedex is a global leader in supply chain data exchange, empowering businesses to make responsible and ethical decisions by providing transparency into supplier networks. The platform focuses on enabling retailers and suppliers to assess risks and ensure compliance, offering critical insights into Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics. With a growing user base and increasing complexities in supply chains, Sedex faced challenges in scaling its capabilities.
Sedex faced a major challenge in managing the growing complexity of supplier networks, which led to difficulties in navigation, data management, and maintaining effective communication across the platform. Users were struggling with inefficient visibility controls, cumbersome navigation, and outdated systems that failed to keep up with their needs. Our goal was to resolve these issues by creating a more intuitive, scalable platform that enhanced data visibility, improved workflows, and ultimately simplified the user experience.
Our goal was to create a more intuitive and scalable platform, enhancing data visibility, improving navigation, and enabling more informed decision-making.
To familiarise myself with the platform and understand the journeys within my product team, I created a mapped out the entire new platform. This exercise provided a clear visual overview of the platform’s structure, highlighting key user interactions and potential areas for improvement.
The complexity of Sedex's user base was growing significantly. As more businesses joined the platform, the task of managing intricate supplier networks became more overwhelming for users. Our user research identified several pain points:
.jpg)
These challenges drove the redesign efforts, aiming to build a more user-centric, efficient, and flexible system.
The project kicked off with a deep discovery phase to ensure our redesign was firmly grounded in user needs. This included comprehensive user research activities designed to understand the intricacies of managing expanding supply chain networks. The key methods included:
.png)
.png)
The outcome of this discovery phase was a detailed problem statement, focusing on the need for more efficient navigation, better data management tools, and clear, scalable interfaces.
We took a blended approach of qualitative and quantitative research to validate our initial findings and inform the design direction:
.png)
%20(1).png)
.png)
Together, these insights demonstrated a need for more intuitive navigation, efficient visibility controls, better communication tools, and a scalable interface design to handle complex supply networks effectively. These guided the development of the three core design concepts to streamline and enhance the user experience.
Before starting with wireframes, we focused on mapping out the early-stage user journeys and defining the "happy paths" for key user interactions. This phase was heavily influenced by the insights gathered during our research and discovery process. We used our understanding of user pain points, preferences, and behaviours to identify the most critical tasks and ensure each journey addressed users' core needs.
After mapping out early-stage user journeys and happy paths, guided by our research insights, I began sketching initial concepts aimed at addressing key user challenges. Once these concepts were drafted, I collaborated with the team to shortlist the ideas that seemed most promising in solving the identified issues. We chose the strongest concepts to move forward with and planned to validate them during our annual Sedex conference, where we could experiment and gather feedback from live members in real time, ensuring that our proposed solutions were tested directly with the end users in a realistic setting.
%20(1)%20(2)-min.png)
The insights from our research and discovery highlighted three core problems faced by users managing complex supplier relationships, lack of efficient data visibility, and difficulty navigating the existing outdated interface. To address these issues, I prototyped three key concepts—Tube Map, Tree List, and Supply Chain Top Sheet—each aimed at solving specific pain points:
.png)
After gathering feedback from live testing and in-person research, we observed that preferences were split between two main visual approaches. This led us to rethink how to integrate the strengths of both designs into a cohesive solution.
Linear Version (Tube map):
Tree View Version:
We began by mapping out the existing user journeys to identify areas where users experienced friction—often referred to as "unhappy paths." These paths revealed key pain points, such as difficulties in navigating large supplier networks and confusion about hierarchical relationships among suppliers. Understanding these challenges allowed us to pinpoint opportunities to significantly improve the user experience.
.png)
To ensure that our approach was feasible from both a design and technical perspective, we worked closely with the development team before diving into design sketches. Together, we conducted data architecture exercises to help developers understand the existing data structure, which played a crucial role in how we planned to integrate new designs seamlessly. This close collaboration ensured that the technical and design teams were fully aligned on requirements from the start.
We also created user stories to make sure we were considering the user experience in a holistic manner. These user stories described tasks from the user’s point of view and helped ensure that every feature and design decision was guided by real user needs and intended behaviours.
.jpg)
With a solid foundation of user insights and technical understanding, I began sketching various concepts aimed at addressing the identified pain points. These sketches underwent multiple iterations until we reached a final design that effectively balanced user needs with platform capabilities. This led to the creation of the Tree View—a hierarchical visualization that helped users make sense of their supplier networks by organizing complex relationships in a more approachable way.
.png)
As we moved into testing, feedback indicated that users needed even greater control and flexibility when navigating their networks. They wanted the ability to easily move between a high-level overview and specific details. In response, the Tree View evolved into the Tree List—a more dynamic and flexible version that allowed users to expand or collapse different nodes, providing both broad overviews and in-depth information when needed.
Our rapid iteration process involved close collaboration with developers to use Material UI components, ensuring we could move quickly without sacrificing quality. These development exercises, paired with user story mapping, were instrumental in aligning the entire team to deliver a design solution that addressed user needs while being technically practical to implement.
The reason for developing the Tube Map Concept was to give users the opportunity to zoom into more detailed data about their supply chain. From the full network shown in the Tree List, we wanted to enable users to dive deeper into specific supply pathways, allowing them to see the detailed data they needed to understand and take action on.
The Tube Map provided a high-level visualisation inspired by transport maps, helping users understand how goods flowed across their supply chain. This approach was effective in simplifying complex, multi-layered relationships into a more digestible form, making it easier for users to grasp the overall structure.
As we gathered feedback, it became clear that users needed both this broader overview and the ability to manage specific details of individual relationships. This insight led to the evolution of the Tube Map into the Link Summary Page, which allowed users to focus on individual supplier connections and manage data visibility more effectively.
We followed the same iterative process as the Tree List concept to refine and validate the Link Summary Page. This approach ensured that the final design was both user-friendly and aligned with technical requirements.
With this project, I advocated for the use of atomic components in our Design System and Storybook libraries. This approach ensured that the components we created were modular, reusable, and adaptable, benefiting both current and future projects.
.png)
I also led efforts to train the team about design tokens and semantic tokens, helping them understand how these tokens could create a more flexible and consistent design system. By introducing tokens, we laid the foundation for a more scalable and adaptive approach to maintaining and extending the visual language of our platform.
The components designed for the Tree List and Link Summary Page were incorporated into Sedex’s broader design system:
The components designed for the Tree List and Link Summary Page were incorporated into Sedex’s broader design system:
The redesign significantly enhanced user experience and improved overall efficiency across the platform. Our key metrics and performance indicators (KPIs) included:
What disciplines did I collaborate with? Notable mentions:
Adding to the previously introduced members, we also have those working in multiple teams who've made noteworthy contributions to Synergy.
Our team has experienced changes in personnel over the course of the project. Some members have left, while others have joined during this time.
©Evangelos Angelis ️
