Column and Layout Management
Project Background
This project focused on redesigning an outdated “Layouts” functionality from an ERP system into a more intuitive, flexible and user-controlled experience. The feature allowed users to customize and save data grid views, but it had been fully dependent on customer support to modify layouts slowing everyone down.
The goal was to give users autonomy to manage their own layouts while keeping enterprise-level control for power users, all inside a unified web interface.
My Contribution
I led the redesign of the entire functionality from research to final design:
Conducted stakeholder interviews and mapped user responsibilities and limitations.
Identified two user groups: simple users (personal customization) and power users (company-wide layout management).
Created and tested multiple flow prototypes for layout creation, renaming, publishing, and versioning.
Designed new components for the design system to support this complex interaction model.
Ran quick internal usability tests, iterated, and refined the flow.
Highlights
Before this redesign, users had to contact customer support to create a layout or even for small changes, like renaming a column, changing visibility, reordering data, etc. After the redesign, users could do it directly and instantly.
This design improved usability by giving full ownership to end-users which in turn freed up literally hours of customer support time.
Discovery
The initiative came as part of the system-wide redesign. The product manager outlined the core business requirement which was to remove manual dependencies.
I conducted five internal interviews to understand what users were actually trying to do and to validate the painpoints of the functionality's two distinct personas:
Simple users: manage personal layouts only.
Power users: manage company layouts, set defaults, and share them organization-wide.
This role split was key to shaping both the UX and the permission model.
Ideation
I explored two approaches:
A full management view, where users could rename, reorder, and drag columns directly inside the component.
A simplified “save layout” flow, optimized for speed and clarity which utilized a dirty+clean version of the grid to propose different actions based on context.
Although the first option offered more control and tested well conceptually, the team decided to start with the simpler approach to ensure consistency across data tables that varied in structure and complexity (e.g., had nested tables in place for certain clients, needed more research to see how groups of columns could be shown).
I first designed a tabbed component (Personal vs Company layouts) but testing showed users preferred to see all layouts in one place. I revised the design into a single, scrollable list separated by section titles, making it easy to compare layouts at a glance.
To clarify defaults, I introduced a new visual system for layout status:
⭐ for personal default
🌍 for company-wide default ("proposed" to be precise term-wise)
Outcomes
The new layout management flow turned a legacy, support-heavy feature into something people could actually use on their own. It's a reusable, flexible pattern that can scale across other modules and data-heavy views without extra design work.
It’s a small but solid step toward modernizing the ERP, giving teams more control while keeping the system’s structure intact.
