Business intelligence,
made legible
Datalogz helps teams collect, process, and visualize data to make decisions, but the app's own usability was working against it. I joined as founding designer and redesigned navigation, dashboards, and onboarding end to end.
Three real friction points
Navigation got in the way. Reports and dashboards were hard to locate, common tasks took more steps than they needed to, and new users got lost before finding any value.
Visualization overwhelmed instead of clarified. Charts weren't scannable at a glance, with no clear hierarchy between key metrics and supporting detail, so finding the insight took more work than the analysis itself.
No path for new users. No onboarding, straight into a dense interface, so activation depended on a user's patience rather than the product.
My role & process
As founding designer I owned the redesign end to end, working directly with the CEO and engineering, with no design team to hand off to.
- 01
Discover
Explored the existing product and ran a competitive analysis of BI tools to see where they clarify and where they clutter.
- 02
Define
Mapped the core flows from question to answer. The biggest churn risk was a confusing first session, before a new user ever reached a useful chart.
- 03
Design
A moodboard set the visual direction, then fast iteration cycles with the CEO took navigation, dashboards, and onboarding through many rounds instead of one polished concept.
- 04
Hand off
Documented a design system and UI kit (type scale, components, interaction states) so engineering could keep building without design drift after I moved on.
What research showed
Competitive analysis showed where BI tools clarify versus clutter, users wanted the story a dataset tells rather than just the raw chart, and a confusing first session was the biggest churn risk: fast iteration mattered more than one polished concept.
Strategy into interface
Key decisions
- 01
Lead every dashboard with the answer
Users wanted the story a dataset tells, not the raw chart. Headline metrics got a clear hierarchy over supporting detail, so a dashboard answers the question before anyone has to dig.
- 02
Onboarding that teaches by doing
A confusing first session was the biggest churn risk. Instead of a feature tour, the first-run flow walks a new user to their first real chart, so the product proves its value before it explains itself.
- 03
Fast iteration over one polished concept
An early-stage product changes weekly. Short cycles with the CEO kept the end goal in view through many changes, instead of betting everything on a single finished design.
Learnings
A dashboard's job is to lead with the answer, not the raw numbers, and fast iteration cycles beat one heavily polished concept. Founding-designer work means owning decisions end to end, with no handoff to lean on, and a documented design system pays off the moment a team scales past one designer.
say about the work
“Saiful led SaaS design efforts for Datalogz during development of our MVP which helped us to acquire venture funding.” LOGAN HAVERN · FOUNDER/CEO, DATALOGZ · $2.3M RAISED