Compliance Tracker
Our pilot product, Compliance Tracker, served as a testing ground for Highland’s evolving SaaS platform architecture. Developed from the ground up using user research, this tool addressed a significant gap in compliance visibility across multiple farming operations.
Consultants and brokers managing food safety audits needed an easier way to monitor overdue logs, manage corrective actions, and prepare clients for audits—all without switching between multiple Highland Hub accounts.
Compliance Tracker provided a unified dashboard with alerts, notifications, and centralized management tools—empowering consultants to ensure their clients stayed audit-ready year-round.
The Challenge
| Business Requirements | User Needs |
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The design solution needed to bridge these issues through centralization, clarity, and automation. |
Research
- User interviews with compliance consultants and brokers across the Southeast U.S.
- Shadowing sessions during actual audit preparation cycles.
- Affinity mapping to group common frustrations, feature requests, and workflow inefficiencies.
Key insights revealed that users didn’t just want data—they wanted actionable visibility:
- “I want to know what’s overdue before my clients do.”
- “Switching between farms eats up my day.”
Usability Testing
Type: Moderated remote usability testing
Participants: 5 consultants (ag compliance and food safety roles)
Duration: 60-minute sessions
Tools Used: Axure interactive prototype, Microsoft Teams, and Notion for observation logs
Tasks Tested:
- Log in and access multiple client dashboards
- Identify overdue compliance items
- Resolve a corrective action
- Set up a new alert or notification
- Review an audit readiness report
Participation Table
Design
Information Architecture
We structured the experience around a single Compliance Overview Dashboard, displaying:
- Client list with compliance status indicators.
- Overdue logs and audit alerts.
- Direct links to corrective actions and documentation.
- Filter and sort controls for quick triage.
Wireframes & Prototypes
From interactive wireframes, users validated the layout through moderated sessions, confirming that the dashboard layout mirrored their mental model of how they manage farms day-to-day.
Design System Integration
Compliance Tracker was among the first products built on the Leaf Design System.
This system provided:
- Component consistency across all Highland SaaS products.
- WCAG 2.1-compliant UI elements for accessibility.
- Tailwind-based modular design tokens ensuring responsive behavior and theming scalability.
- Reusable components such as modals, tables, notification banners, and status indicators.
This ensured that Compliance Tracker could seamlessly integrate with future Highland products—both visually and functionally.
Usability Testing Results
75%
In-Person Audits
87%
Non-Compliance Issues
15pt
User Audit Scores
Impact
The Compliance Tracker pilot provided measurable improvements in workflow efficiency:
- 43% reduction in time spent switching between client accounts.
- 27% faster resolution of overdue compliance logs.
- Increased audit readiness visibility, improving client satisfaction and consultant retention.
- Became the foundation for future compliance modules in the Highland Hub ecosystem.
Additionally, this project validated the Leaf Design System’s scalability, proving that it could support both enterprise dashboards and mobile-first interfaces.
Learnings
- Cross-account visibility was a bigger challenge than anticipated—requiring early collaboration with backend teams on authentication and data sharing.
- Alert fatigue emerged in testing, leading us to prioritize clarity over quantity in notifications.
- Building on the Leaf Design System accelerated the design process by over 30%, underscoring the value of reusable, consistent design assets.
- Early user involvement created stronger alignment between business goals and day-to-day consultant workflows.