cdw — The d.a.s.h.

Scalable Experience to Engage Clients, Demonstrate Solutions, and Drive Strategic Partnerships

DASH: Scaling an Internal Demo Tool into a Revenue-Driving SaaS Powerhouse.

Increased

User Adoption

over first 5 months

Increased

Partnership Growth

over first 5 months

Created a Tool for Sales to Demonstrate Technology Solutions to their Customers while also Showcasing our Partners.

Executive Level Summary

DASH’s success was not driven by visual polish alone—it came from treating the tool as a strategic sales and positioning platform, aligning design, engineering, and leadership around a shared vision for scale and impact.

Overview

DASH began as an internal engineering project intended to demonstrate technical capabilities. While functional, the early version lacked the structure, flexibility, and polish needed to support enterprise sales conversations or executive-level positioning.

I was brought in to transform DASH from a cobbled-together MVP into a scalable, interactive SaaS platform used by engineering, sales, partners, and leadership to showcase the company’s full technology portfolio—and ultimately drive new business opportunities.

Objectives

  • Create a SaaS tool for Engineering to demonstrate technology solutions to IT Clients
  • Create an application used to increase partnerships to offer our client base
  • Create an application to showcase all offerings to customers, solving their business problems
My Role

Lead UX and UI Design

Responsibilities

User Flows, User Research, User Interviews, User Interface Design, Design System Creation

Collaborations

Software Engineers, Software Architects, Business Stakeholder, Graphic Designers, User Researcher, Project Manager, Division Leadership, Executive Leadership, Subject Matter Experts, Partner Evangelists

Timeframe

1.5 years. Project is ongoing.

The Challenge

Version 1.0 of DASH already existed and the UX and UI was cobbled together by the development team in the initial stages. I was brought in to push the project to it's potential and get more buy-in from top decision makers.

I determined the need to satisfy engineering and sales teams for this to be successful. I did not want to abandon either and wanted it to be used by both parties.

business user needs

The C-Suite & Leadership

  • Needed a polished, modern tool to demonstrate the company’s breadth of offerings
  • Required confidence that the platform reinforced brand credibility and market leadership

customer user needs

Engineers, Sales, Partners, SMEs

  • Needed a faster, more flexible alternative to custom-built slide decks
  • Required easy navigation, modular content, and credibility during technical discussions
Strategy & approach

phase 1

Asses & Map

I needed to map DASH, so I could see potential bottlenecks.

phase 2

Redesign the IA

Streamline the flows so partners and sales folks can find what they need easily.

phase 3

Design for Scale

Modernize the interface. Things were put together in haste to get off the ground.

phase 4

Preserve Momentum

Instead of starting over, we designed within established constraints.

phase 5

Accelerate Buy-In

To secure leadership support, I moved directly to high-fidelity mockups.

phase 1

Assess & Map the Existing Product

My team and I audited Version 1.0 by mapping every page, link, and interaction. This revealed structural bottlenecks, unclear flows, and opportunities to better support real sales and demo scenarios.

Outcome: A shared understanding of what to preserve, what to fix, and what needed to scale.
DASH 1.0 I.A.

phase 2

Redesign the IA for Multi-Team Adoption

Rather than designing for a single “primary user,” we restructured the IA and flows to serve:
This ensured adoption across functions without compromising usability for any group.
upgraded DASH I.A.

phase 3

Design for Scale, Not Pages

Screens looked like a typical website, and we wanted more of an application aesthetic. We started to evolve the visuals and functionality from the jump.

Collaborations were utmost importance for design, dev and business strategy teams. Working together we were able to evolve the App's functionality and flows without abandoning it's purpose.

collaborate with engineers

The backend infrastructure had been established. I wanted to preserve as much of that work as possible, without compromising the design solutions we were proposing.

The Front-end UI is built with React, I got alignment for naming conventions, established brand colors, and utilized a component based approach, making the hand-off as smooth as possible.

get leadership buy-in

Showing updated creative would be instrumental to get leadership to understand the value of this project. Timelines were accelerated and I went straight into high-fidelity mock ups and prototypes to present to decision-makers.

phase 4

The MVP

The backend infrastructure was already in place. Instead of starting over, we designed within those constraints—maintaining engineering trust while still elevating the experience.

This balance allowed us to:
  • Move faster
  • Reduce Rework
  • Scale without destabilizing the platform

phase 5

Accelerate Executive Buy-In Through High-Fidelity Prototypes

To secure leadership support, I moved directly into high-fidelity mockups and interactive prototypes. These artifacts made the future-state tangible and reframed DASH as a strategic growth platform rather than an internal experiment.

Result: Faster approvals, accelerated timelines, and clear executive sponsorship.
Outcome & Business Impact
  • Elevated DASH from an internal MVP to a company-wide SaaS platform
  • Enabled consistent, flexible, and modern demos across sales, engineering, and partners
  • Replaced fragmented slide decks with a scalable system tied directly to business conversations
  • Strengthened the company’s ability to position itself as a technology leader during enterprise sales cycles
  • Established a reusable design system and component library that reduced future design and development effort
My Takeaways

Things I learned throughout this process.

Global Alignment

Get all Teams to buy in 100% and believe in your goals for the project.

Jump on a Call

A quick 5-minute Teams call can streamline the process and untangle any bottlenecks

Thorough Documentation

Write out your intentions along with prototyping demonstrations to achieve the best outcomes.