Overview

Business Context and Key Objectives

Advanced reporting is a tool that allow customers to create custom reports and visual metrics based on the data we have available from their organizations via data feeds.

Challenges

Customers with multiple products were previously required to create individual reports within each application and export them to Excel to manually modify data and achieve their desired output. This project focused on creating a simple, accessible experience for a complex task, while meeting WCAG 2.0 compliance and navigating resource constraints.

Solution

To create a single reporting solution that will meet the needs of our customers for all of our products. We can then sunset the existing multiple reporting solutions we currently have with limited functionality.

My Role & Team

As the lead—and sole—designer on the project, I owned the end-to-end UX strategy and execution. I collaborated closely with cross-functional teams including on- and offshore engineers, data scientists, product stakeholders, and executive leadership.

Product Discovery & Design Approach

We crafted a phase released approach that allowed the user to create canned reports to offer customers while we were building out an advanced reporting tool. With the new tool, users will be able to build advanced reports with customizable fields, filters, logic groups, summarized reports and visual graphics.

User Research

We selected current customers and spoke to their HR agents to learn more about their reporting needs, processes and pain points with their current reporting tools. After all interviews were completed I created a thematic analysis slide deck of my findings to present to stakeholders and validate the need for the proposed experience and enhancements.

Ideation & Validation

After taking feedback from the research phase of the project, low fidelity designs and user flows were created and vetted with product owners to ensure the new experience met expectations and developmental restrictions. The new solution gave users the ability to select data points across all of our umbrella of applications to create truly unique reporting solutions.

Execution

Once user interviews were completed and feedback analyzed, it was a good time to start planning user stories and project stages. We crafted a phased release plan and crafted user stories to build our product backlog.

Learnings

This project gave me an understanding of the intricate technological and data mapping that goes into creating custom reports with advanced logic.

I also became familiarized with the complex concept of creating user friendly data visualization experiences. We utilized Highcharts, a JavaScript charting library, to aid in the development of users ability to create interactive and customizable data visualizations like charts, graphs, and maps. It became a pivotal tool in the organizations strategy to create dashboards, reporting tools, and data-driven applications.