Intelligent Project Planning & Seamless Collaboration Platform for Teams
Devz
ROLES
Product Design, UX / UI Design
IMPACTS
$10M+
Seed Funding
IMPACTS
50+
Paying SMB/Startup Customers
BACKGROUND
Effective project management is critical for organizations across industries, yet it remains a significant challenge due to the increasing complexity of modern workflows.
While traditional project management tools have transformed how teams organize and track tasks, they often overwhelm users with overly complex features, lack proactive insights to prevent project delays, and fail to integrate seamlessly into existing work ecosystems. With advancements in artificial intelligence, there is an opportunity to reimagine project management by introducing smarter, more adaptive solutions.
AI-driven platforms can go beyond static task management to provide dynamic support. Through a user-centered design approach, this project will explore how AI can transform traditional project management into a more collaborative, predictive, and seamless experience, catering to the unique needs of modern teams.
PROCESS OVERVIEW
PROBLEM
In today's fast-paced, collaborative work environments, project managers and teams face significant challenges in efficiently planning, managing, and delivering projects.
Existing project management tools, while feature-rich, often fall short in three key areas:
Complexity & Overload
Existing project management tools often overwhelm users with features that are not tailored to their roles or industries, resulting in low adoption, user frustration, and inefficiencies in task execution.
Lack of Proactive Support
Traditional tools rely on users to manually track deadlines, manage workloads, and address project risks. This reactive approach increases the risk of missed deadlines, resource mismanagement, and burnout.
Fragmented Workflows
Teams often use separate tools for tasks, communication, and resources, leading to inefficiencies and making it hard to get clear, actionable insights.
RESEARCH
Goals
Build an AI-powered project management platform that streamlines workflows, supports smarter decisions, and makes team collaboration easy.
The platform is designed for project managers, team leads, and cross-functional teams—especially in small to mid-sized companies and fast-moving industries. It simplifies project management by streamlining workflows, offering smart insights, and adapting to users’ existing tools and needs. Key design goals include an intuitive interface, role-based experiences, AI-powered planning and suggestions, and seamless integration with third-party tools. The goal is to help teams work smarter, deliver on time, and enjoy a better project management experience.
Competitive Analysis
We analyzed leading project management platforms, focusing on features, website design, user experience, and market position. The review revealed strengths like clear navigation and flexible team support, as well as challenges such as complex pricing and steep learning curves. These insights helped shape a design approach focused on simplicity, usability, and balanced functionality.
PERSONA
IDEATION
Journey Map
To better understand the user experience and uncover key pain points, we created a journey map focused on a typical project manager using the AI-assisted platform. This journey highlights their experience from discovering your platform to becoming an active user and advocate.
Site Map
To create a seamless and intuitive experience for users across roles—project managers, team members, and business owners—We designed a structured sitemap that reflects the core functionalities of the AI-assisted project management platform. This sitemap lays the foundation for a user-friendly navigation system, ensuring that essential features like task management, real-time AI insights, team collaboration, and reporting are easily accessible.
Lo-Fi Wireframes
After defining the main user task and flow, we attempted to create the first set of lo-fi wireframes to run some preliminary testing with the actual users, which allowed us to gather some initial feedback
DESIGN & PROTOTYPE
Design Iterations
During the interaction design phase, we encountered several challenges. To address them, we conducted multiple moderated user testing sessions and went through several rounds of iteration based on the feedback gathered. Insights from focus groups and stakeholder meetings helped us better understand user needs and refine our designs accordingly. Below are some of the key design improvements we made.
Could Be Improved
Key Actions Section can be categorized and show clear actions
Info under My Projects can be simplified to differentiate from Project overview page
Add the My Deliverables section to the homepage to give users quicker access.
New Design Based On Feedback
Categorize Key Actions and add action buttons for convenience
Rearrange the layout and prioritize My Deliverable section before My Projects
Simplify My Projects section’s info and differentiate it from the Project Overview page
Add pagination to manage sections that have more items to display
Hi-Fidelity Prototypes
My Projects
A centralized dashboard that gives users a bird’s-eye view of their projects.
This page displays active projects high level details including status, timelines, assigned team members. The goal is to help teams quickly assess progress, identify blockers, and stay aligned without digging into individual tasks.
Dashboard Widgets
Personalized Dashboard Widgets for Project Insights
The dashboard offers a variety of customizable widgets—allowing users to tailor their workspace to their specific roles and needs. This flexibility ensures that team members at all levels can access the information most relevant to them.
Project Tracking
Switch Views Seamlessly,
Stay Aligned Always
Users track projects in the way that works best for them—using Listing, Board, or Sheet views. Each view makes it easy for different team member roles to manage tasks, update progress, and stay organized. Teams can switch between views to match their workflow, making it simple for everyone to stay aligned.
Listing View
The Listing View focuses on clarity and hierarchy, displaying tasks in a structured list format. It’s optimized for tracking key details like assignees, due dates, and status at a glance—perfect for project managers who want a clean overview without the complexity of grid-based inputs.
Board View
The Board View provides a visual workflow with drag-and-drop cards, helping teams easily manage tasks by status or stage. It’s ideal for agile workflows, sprint planning, and quickly spotting bottlenecks in real time.
Sheet View
The Sheet View mirrors a traditional spreadsheet, offering grid-based inputs for in-depth planning, calculations, and custom fields. This view is especially useful for operations-heavy teams who need precise control over task details, budgets, or dependencies.
Sheet View AI Actions
AI-Driven Milestone And Deliverable Generation
The AI Plan in Sheet View enables generation of milestones and deliverables from project details. The AI Expand feature can automatically populate empty fields for existing items, while the AI Split feature allows large deliverables to be broken down into smaller, more manageable tasks.
Deliverable Details
Detailed Deliverable Overview for Full Transparency
The Deliverable Details page offers a comprehensive view of each task, presenting critical information, ensuring transparency, accountability and efficient communication throughout the project lifecycle.
Contextual Side Panels
The side panel provides quick access to supporting details, including the activity log, a history of developers’ logged hours, related demo files, etc. This contextual view helps users stay informed and make faster, data-driven decisions without leaving the main task view.
Devi AI Assistant
Smarter Project Management with Proactive Guidance
Devi AI Assistant acts as an intelligent partner throughout the project lifecycle, helping users manage tasks, track progress, and optimize workflows with ease. Beyond responding to requests, Devi proactively prompts users with reminders, insights, and recommendations—whether it’s highlighting potential delays, suggesting task breakdowns, or surfacing key updates. By combining AI-driven support with proactive guidance, Devi empowers teams to stay focused, reduce friction, and deliver projects more efficiently.
My Note
Streamlined Standups and Project Tracking
My Notes offers a dedicated space to record daily or weekly standup meeting updates and project plans. Users can capture progress, upcoming tasks, and blockers in one place, making it easier to stay aligned, share updates, and track action items.
My Calendar
Meetings & Deadlines Made Clear And Visible
The calendar organizes project meetings and due dates in one view, helping users track timelines, avoid conflicts, and keep work on schedule.
Mobile App
Seamless Project Control On Mobile
We also develop mobile app for Forge to bring essential project management features directly to users on the go. The mobile app brings core project management features—like deliverable tracking, timelines, and task updates—into a simple, intuitive mobile experience. Designed for quick access and usability, it helps teams stay connected and productive anytime, anywhere.
STYLEGUIDE
