Small UI Changes, Big Impact: The Team Dashboard Story
When people think of innovation in UX design, they often imagine bold redesigns, flashy new interfaces, or ground-up rethinks of entire products. But in reality, some of the most impactful work happens in the small details—incremental improvements that remove friction and unlock efficiency for users. This was exactly the case in the redesign of Maxon’s Team Dashboard, a tool that administrators use to manage software licenses across studios and organizations.
When people think of innovation in UX design, they often imagine bold redesigns, flashy new interfaces, or ground-up rethinks of entire products. But in reality, some of the most impactful work happens in the small details—incremental improvements that remove friction and unlock efficiency for users. This was exactly the case in the redesign of Maxon’s Team Dashboard, a tool that administrators use to manage software licenses across studios and organizations.
The Problem: Complexity in License Management
Administrators weren’t struggling with “big picture” issues—they were getting stuck on everyday tasks:
Tracking which licenses were expiring soon.
Differentiating between assigned vs. available licenses.
Filtering by workstations or contract groups without losing context.
The dashboard technically had all the data, but its presentation wasn’t aligned with how admins thought or worked. That disconnect forced users into tedious manual tracking and unnecessary back-and-forth.
The challenge: Could we make license management clearer and faster—without rebuilding the entire system?
Research and Insights
Through interviews with administrators, a heuristic audit, and analysis of common support tickets, we uncovered four key insights:
Clarity beats complexity — users didn’t need more data, they needed clearer data.
Grouping must reflect reality — admins often organized by workstation or contract, but the UI didn’t support this mental model.
Visual cues accelerate recognition — subtle color, labeling, and icon changes can save seconds on every task.
Small changes can add up — improving just a few repeated tasks can massively reduce admin workload.
The Solution: Strategic UI Refinements
Instead of proposing a complete overhaul, we focused on surgical improvements:
Filtering and Grouping: Introduced a clear workstation-type filter with multi-select options, allowing admins to quickly zero in on specific licenses.
Status Indicators: Added a new assignment-status column to instantly show whether a license was in use or available.
Visual Differentiation: Applied color-coded cues and simplified buttons to highlight expiring licenses and active filters.
Compact Layout: Cleaned up button styles and spacing to reduce visual noise and improve readability.
Each change was small on its own—but together, they reshaped the experience of managing dozens (or hundreds) of licenses.
Results
The impact of these refinements was immediate and measurable:
↓ 60% faster for admins to locate and act on expiring licenses.
100% task success rate when filtering by workstation type, compared to repeated errors before.
These aren’t vanity metrics—they represent hours saved every week for admins managing large studios, and fewer support tickets for Maxon.
Reflections on Design Leadership
This project reinforced an important truth: design leadership isn’t always about proposing radical change. Sometimes, it’s about identifying the smallest, most cost-effective improvements that will deliver the biggest return.
As Lead UX Designer, my role was to:
Synthesize admin pain points into actionable UI refinements.
Collaborate closely with UI and development teams to ensure feasibility.
Test, iterate, and validate that the improvements solved real problems.
Balance impact with effort, delivering results without straining backend resources.
Lessons for Designers
The Team Dashboard project shows that:
Small UI decisions matter. A button, a column, or a filter can transform an experience.
Design ROI comes from alignment. When UI reflects how users think, efficiency skyrockets.
Not every solution is a redesign. Sometimes the best design leadership is knowing what not to change.
By focusing on precision improvements, we turned a cluttered, confusing dashboard into a tool administrators trust to do their jobs quickly and accurately. And in the process, we proved that big impact often starts with small design details.