TRADE PROSPECTS

A product that lets users search for importers and exporters by company, commodity, trade volume, country, and even down to the zip code within a specific U.S. state.

Problem

Users needed a way to make sense of complex import and export data without feeling overwhelmed. The challenge was to design a product that could display detailed shipment information, partner relationships, and company demographics in a format that felt intuitive and engaging. At the same time, the product had to establish a consistent design system that could scale across future product lines, ensuring both usability and brand cohesion.

My Role

I was responsible for all the UI/UX design elements for the product as well as any and all research that was needed. This included persona development, unified data selectors, a visual map selector, interactive chart tools, usability testing, and shaping the overall product strategy.

Challenges

The goal was to design a product that could present complex import/export data in a way that felt approachable and useful. It needed to include detailed shipment information, partner relationships, and company demographics. A secondary challenge was to establish a consistent look and feel that could scale across other product lines.

Discovery & Research

Through customer interviews, two main personas were identified. Once the interviews wrapped, the team jumped into brainstorming sessions based on customer input and began shaping the product’s structure. I created a basic wireframe and shared it at different stages with interviewees to gather feedback. That feedback became the backbone of the product direction and guided both design and development decisions.

Solution

Because the product relied heavily on step‑by‑step selection, I chose a left‑side navigation to give users more space and keep everything contained in one view. This allowed users to immediately see changes based on their choices.

I transformed raw import/export data into an engaging experience. Drill‑down maps gave users a quick overview of stats, while interactive graphs made it easy to access detailed information in a clean, professional environment.

Summary & Reflection

Onboarding was gradual, with the product manager adding a few customers each week. This gave me the chance to collect feedback quickly and address concerns in real time. Alongside direct feedback, I used Google Analytics to track feature usage and identify opportunities for improvement. Enhancements were rolled out continuously to refine the user experience.

This project was highly collaborative. The development team and I worked closely to solve challenges as they came up, and our brainstorming sessions paid off. The product became the foundation for future product lines and received strong reviews from both the business side and end users. It proved that complex trade data could be delivered in a way that was intuitive, engaging, and scalable.