Unlocking the full potential of analytics for everyone.
The tool required users to write SQL queries to retrieve meaningful data—something not every user felt comfortable doing. This limited the tool’s effectiveness for users who didn’t have technical expertise.
Additionally, the tool produced single data points or analytics, which in isolation didn’t provide much value. What the users truly needed was the ability to combine multiple analytics that represented a full product flow or user experience.
OUR USERS
Engineers
Use the tool to analyze product performance metrics.
Very comfortable writing SQL queries.
Product Managers
Use the tool to monitor product flows and gather insights.
Somewhat comfortable writing basic SQL queries.
Product Designers
Use the tool to analyze user behavior on the app.
Not comfortable writing SQL queries.
Growth and Marketing
Use the tool to assess campaign effectiveness.
Not comfortable writing SQL queries.
Enable Custom Dashboards
Allow users to create personalized dashboards by combining multiple analytics in one place, tailored to their needs.
Reusable Analytics Without SQL
Introduce a saved analytics library, empowering users to easily add pre-defined metrics to their dashboards without writing SQL queries.
We knew what to build. My job on this project was figuring out how to build it and validate it.
I broke the whole flow down into two key steps:
Creating a Dashboard ✒️
The process had to be seamless, enabling users to select, combine, and filter data points through an intuitive interface.
Viewing the Dashboard 👁️
Once created, the dashboard needed to present the data in a digestible format, allowing users to draw insights effortlessly.
Steps involved in creating a new dashboard:
After researching several existing products, I was particularly inspired by the drag-and-drop interfaces in Intuit Mailchimp and Canva. Both tools stood out because of their user-friendly approach to complex tasks. These platforms inspired me to envision a dashboard where users could drag and drop analytics widgets to create their own dashboards.
SOLUTION
The new dashboards section
Housed within the analytics, the new dashboards section allows users to create, view and share dashboards that have important data points about the user within a particular product flow.
Allowing users to tweak analytics within the widget
Starting the design process backward.
When I started this project, the stakeholders already had a clear vision for the final solution, which challenged the traditional design process I was familiar with. Although I had creative freedom, most of my effort was spent figuring out how to bring their ideas to life. This experience taught me that real-world design is rarely linear. Starting with a solution rather than the problem wasn’t easier either—it required its own process of understanding the rationale behind the vision and refining it to make it more user-centric. Ultimately, this project helped me realize that the design process is about adaptability, navigating constraints, and finding the best way to solve a problem, even if it means working backward.
