PIERS Analytics

My Role

I was responsible for all UI/UX design elements of the product; including but not limited to first time user experience, usage counters, unified data selectors, and overall strategy.

The Challenge

Design a product that helps businesses expand and grow using a comprehensive research tool that brings together all the elements of trade data into one streamlined product.

Discovery & Research

Because I designed the website for this product (E-Commerce Website), I was able to utilize the user personas and buyer's journey that had previously been developed. The bulk of this project was spent on getting the backend to work with what we wanted the user to be able to do which was easier said than done, it really made me understand the importance of working together as a team and how important it is to understand how things work. Just because you want something a certain way doesn’t mean the system is capable of doing it.

Visual & Functional Design

This project ended up being a rather large undertaking. There was a product that we were loosely basing this one off of. The overall goal was to take all the great elements of that product and recreate and modernize it, both the look and feel and the overall functionality. Luckily we had great customers and were able to launch a private beta of the product two months before the actual launch date, that allowed me to be sure the user interface was understood by the customer and that the overall experience was intuitive and effective.

Usability & Post Launch

With the use of Google Analytics and Salesforce, I was able to track usage through the product. I could see what customers top searches were, what categories they searched the most and what areas of the product they utilized. All of this helped redefine many elements of the product, it become an ever evolving product. With the help of the on-site support team, developers and product management I was always in-tune with the customers needs. It was a great feeling to actually be creating something for a customer, listening to them and because the team was so agile I was able to implement my designs quickly and efficiently.

Conclusion

Unfortunately this product was only allowed to see the light of day for 5 months, after that focus was changed within the company and the e-commerce division was dissolved. That wasn't to say it wasn't a success. We saw product sales increase, overall product growth as well as increased user activity. Even though it didn't have a long shelf life, working on this product taught me a lot about the agile environment and allowed me to improve my skills on the overall process and collaboration between the various different teams. It also gave me a better understanding of customers and how very minor things could help improve the user experience.