Merging Three Data Exploration Tools into One
My Role
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Team
Myself &
1 x Design Manager
1 x UX Designers
2 x Product Managers
Skills
UX/UI Design
Responsive Prototyping
Workshop Facilitation
Cross team collaboration
Business Impact
• Retained 1000 customers by providing a new data exploration experience before the end of flash killed their existing product.
• Improved low NPS score from poor usability by combining 3 data exploration tools into 1.
• Supported product level KPI of empowering the business user (less technical) more by ensuring an intuitive and simple UX.
Timeline
April 2020 - Aug 2020 (4 mos)
Context
SAP Analytics Cloud is SAP's flagship business intelligence platform. At the time, it had a low NPS score with poor usability cited as one of the common reasons.
The Problem
In response to the low NPS score, three main targets were set. Improve consistency across the product, empower the business user (less technical), and move SAC to becoming more cloud native. To support this, I was assigned to merge the three data exploration tools currently in use, to one seamless experience.
Our Approach
A workshop and stakeholder interviews informing an iterative MVP development for senior management buy-in.
Workshop
To kick off the project, a three day workshop was held bringing together senior members of product, development, and design for strategy alignment and initial ideation.
Stakeholder Interviews
We needed to know more details about each existing tool and the product strategy so we conducted 30 minute semi-structured interviews with all relevant stakeholders.
Product Management
Why
Knowledgable about customer feedback, industry trends, and overall product strategy.
Goal
To better understand customer feedback on each tool, how to align merge with future of data analytics, and roadmap prioritization.
Key Takeaways
• Analytics is moving towards more of an ad hoc service.
• Need to cater to non-technical users and progressively disclose to power users.
• Need to create tool to exist as ubiquitous and non file based.
Design
Why
Knowledgable about UI standards, customer personas, and known pain points.
Goal
Better understand UI guidelines to be enforced, known user pain points, and user personas.
Key Takeaways
• All tools have existing gaps in design standards which need to be closed.
Development
Why
Knowledgable about system architecture, technical constraints, and development costing.
Goal
Better understand which system base merging should start from, technical constraints of merge, investment costing for new feature development.
Key Takeaways
• Data analyzer has the fastest response time so could be used as the base to start the merge from.
Sales
Why
Knowledgable about customer pain points, what is in demand and future of analytics.
Goal
Better understand customer pain points, what customers need, and which features are in demand.
Key Takeaways
• 1000+ data explorer customers need an alternative to their needs with the end of flash and the current tool depending on it.
Key Insights
The data from the stakeholder interviews and workshop was synthesized and analyzed into 5 guiding insights.
Data Analyser as the base
Having the fastest performance, the other tools features should be progressively layered on top of Data Analyzer.
Created by LAFS
from the Noun Project
Design Standards
All design standards should be merged and brought up to the latest UI release.
Three Personas
Defined three key personas, the consumer, analyst, and power user. All should be served in progressive disclosure.
Merge Order
Data analyzer and data explorer should be merged first with the final addition of search to insight last.
No Files
The tool should not be file based and provide seamless ad hoc data exploration.
Concept Ideation
Initial ideas were mocked up and presented to product management and product experts for feedback.
Design Solution
After another round of stakeholder feedback, the designs were refined into high fidelity mockups and pitched for investment.
Natural Language Processing
NLP was used to create a low barrier entry for users of all expertise and invite an easy entry to answering their business questions.
Interactive Search Query
After the search is triggered, users have the ability to edit their original query using the search bar or facet panel for added functionality.
Exploration History
Users can unlock their current exploration view to start a new one or revisit their history of searches.
Advanced Mode
Users can transition further to advanced mode catered to power users and provides pivot table functionality.
Impact
1k
Customers Retained
Data Explorer was built on flash and therefore due to be deprecated when flash was at the end of 2020. We released an early version of data explorer which saved the 1000 customers from ending their subscriptions to SAC.
NPS Score
Improved low NPS score from poor usability by combining 3 data exploration tools into 1.
Supporting Product Strategy
Supported product level KPI of empowering the business user (less technical) more by ensuring an intuitive and simple UX.
Reflections
Proposal too large
Our concept proposal did not get built which was due to a change in resourcing priorities and the size of our proposal being too large. Earlier and more frequent collaboration with senior sponsors and development teams could have resulted in a more pragmatic solution that could have received investment.
Changing goalposts
Throughout the design process the goals of each individual exploration tool kept changing resulting in difficulty in remaining aligned with a harmonized future. A strategy that worked well was to have a firm north star product grounded in our user feedback. This acted as an anchor for the long term direction which helped individual teams align their more immediate decisions towards the eventual end goal.
Ownership Model
In the early stages of the design process there lacked a cohesive team and product manager dedicated to the project. In the future, as a designer, we could have taken the opportunity to fill these voids and bring together the necessary stakeholders earlier to get momentum moving faster.
Measuring Impact
Although the product was not launched during my time I would track net promoter score (NPS) and usage rate against our baseline data to gauge success. This is due to the fact that the exploration tool is one of many offerings in a larger product.
Website design and content by Ori Nevares