One of our main focuses at ToolBox is how easy it is for our clients to use the solutions we build. By improving the ease of use our solutions we’re able to deliver better customer care and ensure that clients are happy with their toolbox. ToolBox Advantage , our category management reporting solution, is a great example of our continued focus on usability and strives to make the user’s experience as pleasant and smooth as possible. There are countless design principles that go into each and every one of our toolboxes but there are a few grounding principles that really bring everything together on the user interface: simplicity, clarity, consistency and minimalism.
Simplicity is important because it reduces the amount of time our clients spend having to think about what they want to when using a toolbox. Both manufacturer and retail clients log in to their site and are presented with few, clear options that make it easy to decide where to click to reach the feature they’re looking for. We aim to design our solutions in such a way as to make them self-evident to the user and to reduce the thought required when we expect a user’s input.
Clarity is what allows users to find out how to accomplish something once they’ve made a decision about what they want to do. When a client is ready to navigate to a report or look at a help file, it should be immediately obvious how to do that without forcing the user to think about how or where to find that information.
Consistency helps users learn and remember different features and analytic reports available in a toolbox and allows for a more pleasing experience overall. Something as simple as keeping button appearance consistent across the site can help clients understand how to use features they haven’t seen before with the least amount of time spent analyzing and thinking about what to do.
Minimalism comes into play by reducing the noise and clutter in our reporting solutions. The user should be able to find everything they need easily, but they don’t need to be assaulted with walls of information that isn’t relevant. We strive to minimize the amount of text and content we present to each client unless it is pertinent to the page or feature they are viewing. As mentioned above, we strive to make our features self-evident where possible to minimize the need for excess instruction and to avoid clutter.
While each of these principles can be broken down into many smaller parts and explained in detail, the core concept behind each one is what really drives our growth and keeps our clients (retailers and manufacturers) coming back for more. By making our solutions easy to understand, easy to use and easy on the eyes we’re delivering the best customer care and keep our clients coming back for more!
