Project background

I was approached by a small technology company to design a solution that would improve innovation management and employee engagement. The company faced several challenges in capturing and implementing new ideas effectively:
Good ideas were getting lost in email chains or forgotten after meetings.
Employees felt their suggestions weren’t being acknowledged or acted upon.
Innovation efforts were siloed within departments, limiting cross-functional collaboration.
There was no structured or transparent process for evaluating and implementing new ideas.
The company needed a structured, user-friendly platform to streamline the process of idea submission, review, and implementation.
My role as a UX designer was to create an intuitive system that encouraged participation, ensured transparency, and facilitated the transformation of ideas into actionable initiatives.

CLIENT

FutureTech Solutions

ROLE

UX Designer
UX Researcher

tools

Figma
FigJam
Microsoft Teams
Slack

Front end frameworks

Tailwind Css
‍

Ui Libraries

Material Design
ShadCN UI
‍

What is needed?

The Agile team proposed development of an Idea platform, an internal web application that allows employees to submit ideas for business innovation or workplace improvements.

Why is it needed?

The goal is to boost employee engagement, foster collaboration across departments, and bring more transparency to decision-making. By improving how ideas are evaluated and implemented, we can maximize resources, cut down on redundant initiatives, and speed up the process. To make this happen, a secure, scalable idea submission app that simplifies innovation management is needed. It will provide a structured way to submit ideas, facilitate multi-stage reviews, gather stakeholder feedback, and track projects from start to finish.

Identify the stakeholders

Step 1

Stakeholders

Employees
Managers
Leadership

How I generated insights to drive design decisions.

The aim was to understand the application's core needs while uncovering the key features envisioned by the stakeholders.
I began by -Stakeholder Interviews- to get a full grasp of the scope of the project, then derived the insights.

The questions I had

What motivates them to submit ideas?
What barriers prevent them from sharing ideas?
What features would make the submission process intuitive and engaging?
What would encourage you to share your ideas?

What’s the most effective way for you to review and respond to ideas?
What challenges have you faced when sharing ideas in the past?
What’s the most effective way for you to review and respond to ideas?
How will managers and leadership interact with submitted ideas?

The Insights

100%
Recognition from leadership and peers for successful ideas and gaining career advancement through visibility.
80%
Ideas might be ignored or dismissed without feedback.
70%
Feedbacks or likes from peers. Transparency in why an idea was rejected or approved.

90%
Managers can approve, reject, or escalate ideas to leadership with justifications.
Managers can offer constructive feedback directly in the app, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement. Asking them to give more details or approving the idea based on resources and analytics.

Path taken

As this idea was pitched in and it was a fresh idea, the team decided on having a initial simple design prototype to showcase it to the stakeholders.
After the research I started on scribbling designs and tried to get some ideas considering the requirements.
The Idea when gets ignited, can be entered into entry screen ”Envision”.
In this screen when the idea is entered and submitted. The idea will be moved to next screen that show cases the idea in a detailed card form.

The highest voted idea will be considered as priority depending on how the idea will make an impact on the business.
The decision will be taken by the leadership team depending on their time convenience.
There idea can be tweaked or made any adjustments only until its in the analyze stage.
The edit option shuts down as the idea enters the engage phase.

Design

Step 2

Information Architecture

I presented my low-fidelity designs to my team and stakeholders. I explained the process and demonstrated the interactions. Later I gathered their feedback for further refinement.

Intial Designs

Final Design

Refined Designs

Here are few of the UI design screens. I designed this application by implementing ShadCN UI for customizable, minimalistic components and Material Design for structured, user-friendly layouts, enhancing the overall design consistency.
I Leveraged a mix of ShadCN UI’s utility-first approach and Material Design’s guidelines to create a clean, cohesive, and scalable component system.

Key Features

Simple Submission Process:
‍Intuitive interface allowing employees to submit ideas with description, potential benefits, and estimated resource requirements.
Categorization system:
Ideas tagged by department, domain.

Transparent review process:
Multi stage review workflow with clear status indicators.

Comment and Collaboration:
Ability for other employees to comment, suggest improvements, or volunteer to help.

Key Learnings

Leadership Engagement is Critical:
Regular participation from executives in reviewing and commenting on ideas demonstrated organizational commitment.
Quick Wins Build Momentum:
Implementing smaller, achievable ideas early in the process encouraged more submissions.
Transparency Builds Trust:
Keeping submitters informed about the status of their ideas, even when rejected, maintained enthusiasm for the program.

Recognition Matters:
Public acknowledgment of implemented ideas and their impact motivated continued participation.
Budget Flexibility:
Having a dedicated innovation budget with some flexibility allowed for timely implementation of worthwhile ideas.

Next Steps

Based on the success of the platform, the company is

Implementing quarterly innovation challenges focused on specific business objectives
Creating an Innovation Ambassador program in each department
Exploring the possibility of extending idea submission to clients and partners

IdeaSpark - An Idea Submission App