Case Study
Restructuring a Customer Dashboard for What Matters Most
Turning a dashboard that buried its own value into an at-a-glance path from progress to action.
Overview
CleanHub connects brands with plastic collection projects in coastal communities, giving them an Impact Platform to track and communicate the difference they're funding. The value loop for brands is simple:
fund recovery → understand your impact → communicate it
The dashboard is the only surface customers touch at every stage of that loop, and the first thing they see on login.
New features, including content and onboarding, were added as the platform grew, and the dashboard grew to hold all of it until it stopped feeling like a product with a point of view. Customers could still find things, but couldn't tell what mattered or where to go next. I led the redesign, working with our PM through discovery and with Engineering and Customer Success through delivery.
The Problem
The dashboard wasn't behaving like a dashboard
A dashboard should provide orientation at a glance: what's happening, what matters, what can I do next. This one struggled with all three — everything stacked with similar prominence, showing everything and prioritizing nothing.
Onboarding dominates the top of the viewport, a temporary state with no way to opt out.
Content lacks context: the latest asset is shown regardless of relevance.
Core value sits below the fold, so customers scroll past the impact they fund.
Everything competes equally, with no guidance on what to do next.
The data backed our concerns:
Over 50%
of active customers never visited content, despite it being a core part of CleanHub's value to brands
~45%
of dashboard sessions ended without a secondary meaningful action
~1/4
of first actions from the dashboard were completing an onboarding task, and content didn't crack the top five
Note: figures rounded and absolute values omitted to protect confidential data.
Customer conversations and recurring feedback from Customer Success clarified three needs:
Check progress
Customers returned primarily to check their recovery progress.
I usually just want to see where we are.
Communicate around milestones
Customers were more likely to communicate around a meaningful achievement or awareness day.
It's easier when there's actually something new to say.
Complete a known task
Customers accessing the web trackers knew what they needed.
If I need the report, I just want to get to it.
The state of the dashboard did not reflect that: no quick progress read, random assets and news were being pushed instead, no fast path to the report or widget.
How might we help customers understand their current impact and identify the most relevant next action while keeping everything within the viewport?
Design Challenge
Turn the dashboard into an at-a-glance action surface
The Process
Solving for what had to stay
I started from one principle: everything a customer needs should fit within the initial viewport. Two constraints shaped the rest: Leadership wanted to keep pushing "Collect more" as a referral CTA, and Customer Success wanted onboarding mandatory, visible until complete, no opt-out.
A first pass reordered sections by feel, but we needed to validate how to resolve the action hierarchy and reconcile user behavior with company objectives.
So I pushed the discussion toward strategy: map every destination against customer intent instead of ranking by instinct.
That mapping reinforced two things worth acting on:
- "Content" was CleanHub's biggest differentiator. It deserved more room than features people barely touched, like the report or the widget.
- "Onboarding" occupied prime real estate with no opt-out, regardless of progress. The tracking data confirmed it was competing directly with the push toward content.
Three decisions came out of that:
Put together, we got a dashboard that finally orients, prioritises, and points to action, without asking anyone to scroll for it.
Before shipping, I validated with CS, PM, and original interviewees through a task-based walkthrough. CS questioned whether lower prominence would hurt completion — we agreed access mattered more than attention for returning customers. Engineering then phased the rollout, keeping the hierarchy intact as scope evolved.
Outcome
From feature catalogue to action surface
The redesign wasn't only about exposing more functionality, but about helping customers understand where they were and what to do next. Especially to bring them in the value loop and compel them to communicate about their sustainability efforts.
After launch, customers engaged more with the parts of the dashboard that reflected their goals, while fewer sessions ended without meaningful follow-up.
+50%
content discovery from the Dashboard
~65%
of dashboard sessions continued to a meaningful next action
-30%
time taken to first meaningful action
+60%
communication pack downloads
Note: figures rounded and absolute values omitted to protect confidential data.
Rather than relying on customers to know where valuable content lived, the dashboard began surfacing the most relevant opportunities at the right moment, whether that meant celebrating a milestone, downloading communication assets, or accessing the tools they already depended on.
The most important outcome wasn't higher click-through rates; it was a clearer behavioural pattern. Customers were moving from checking progress to taking a next step, which was the core purpose of the dashboard from the beginning.
The work highlighted how product surfaces accumulate business goals over time, and unless someone continually refocuses them around user needs, they eventually stop helping users make decisions. My role wasn't simply redesigning a page, it was helping the team decide what the product should prioritise.