Dashboard Design for Essex County Council

Role: Lead Product Designer

Timeline: 3 Weeks

Client: Essex County Council

Project Overview: The Essex County Council platform is a robust digital system designed to support early intervention and inclusive education under the principle of “Life Without Labels.”

The platform enables SENCOs, teachers, ECC admins, students, and parents to assess, profile, and action-plan educational support for students across multiple schools—reducing exclusion, avoiding unnecessary referrals to SEND/statutory services, and promoting timely help.

Scope: Web Application Dashboard

Tools Used: Figma, Miro, Notion, Zeplin

Team: Cross-functional team with Council stakeholders, Engineers, Accessibility Lead, UX Researcher

Design a centralized tool for student capability assessment and action planning

Support group and individual profiling aligned with the Essex Inclusion Framework

Provide heatmap visualizations and analytics to help identify student trends

Ensure compliance with Council and national SEND regulations

Make the tool accessible for multiple user roles: SENCOs, ECC admins, teachers, parents, and students

The system supports five user types, but I focused first on the SENCO experience, designing the following:

School Registration Flow – Including payment integration and admin verification

Cohort Creation – Forming support groups across year levels or behavioral categories

Heatmap Reporting + “Find Similar” Tool – Identify students with shared needs

Group & Individual Action Plans – Draft, save, and share improvement strategies

Assessment Grid Creation – Custom input of structured capability levels per category (e.g., Relationships, Wellbeing, Attendance)

Analytics Dashboards – With interactive charts showing progress across schools/cohorts