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MakerSights empowers retail teams to align consumer preferences with product decisions through research and product testing. As a modern research partner, our consumer insights drive success for brands like Adidas, HOKA, Ralph Lauren, North Face, and Timberland.
For this project, I led the end-to-end design of the 2.0 survey results experience. "Survey Results" data display enables our customers to analyze insights that answer their research questions and inform their product decisions.
Working in a B2B hybrid service-software model means multiple users with different goals and needs.
The 1.0 layout prioritized side navigation, filters, and tabs over the actual data, making it harder for users to access key insights. To help users quickly reach survey insights, we needed to restructure the results, separate insights from raw responses, and upgrade data visualization options.
The 1.0 workflow was limiting, forcing our team to rely on workarounds like using CSV files for analysis and chart creation. As a result, it took 4-8 hours to analyze project data.
Even if we just build out the best raw results experience, we knew it was still a leap for our internal team to find the relevant survey insights. We needed to find a way to surface these insights faster to them with AI capabilities.
Since our Customer Operations team is the main user of the product, they are the thought partners I worked with. I joined their weekly standup sync to stay close to their projects, build empathy for their pressing needs and bring insights back to prioritize features with my product team. The ultimate product is an Insight Report deck that our team builds for our customers, so I looked at hundreds of their decks to understand how to optimize the workflow for them and what the customers need.
This was a major project for our small but dedicated team. We broke the work into multiple epics, tackling them incrementally until our internal team could seamlessly conduct end-to-end analysis and report building within the 2.0 platform. Our initial focus was on productizing core flows that mirrored 1.0 capabilities while addressing the most pressing user needs. Once the foundation was in place, we introduced new features to enhance the data analysis workflow. Throughout the process, I collaborated closely within the product triad to ensure alignment and maintain momentum.
Introduce collapsible sidebars
To maximize the data view’s real estate, we made the navigation and filter sidebars collapsible. Given that most surveys include at least 15 products, we also introduced a full-screen mode, ensuring all products are visible without being cut off in a smaller view.
The Compare toggle was added to the filter sidebar
I explored various comparison views for both product and non-product data. Working closely with the UX researcher, we tested the usability of the comparison mode, chart formatting, and the comprehension of newly designed comparison charts. All participants successfully located the comparison mode via the Compare toggle in the side panel. Additionally, they found viewing comparisons across all questions at once to be clearer and more helpful than reviewing them individually.
Prioritize displaying ranked product images
From my regular conversations with the Customer Operations team, I learned that customers value product visuals more than constant chart-based representations. By the time this feature was prioritized, I had already gathered key insights on what was needed for its design. I advocated for giving users control over the size of product tiles, allowing them to customize their view in the Insight Report.
As we were going through this project, our company was also going through a marketing rebrand. I led the software’s branding updates, coordinating between marketing and product to align both our 1.0 and 2.0 platforms with the new brand. This involved creating a unified color palette that met accessibility standards, updating the typescale, and refining all design system components, including data visualization elements.
We've significantly revamped the data visualizations and toolings in the raw results area. Users can now view results for ten question types instead of three, with five types of data visualizations instead of one. Additionally, we've enhanced the visualizations for sentiment scores and line efficiencies.
Our delivery lays the groundwork for future roadmap initiatives. We introduced the Survey Insights area to prioritize key insights, guiding users' attention effectively. The new navigation was designed to align with the report structure used by our retail brands.
Qualitative data is considered a “goldmine” for getting a “real read” on what people think about a product, colour, design, or topic. It is hard to collect and decipher at scale; reading through thousands of open ended responses to spot patterns. We have introduced open text summarization with LLM to help save our team valuable time.
We've enhanced the experience by allowing users to aggregate or compare data across selected products. Filters have been upgraded from limited options to grouped categories, enabling more efficient data refinement. We've also introduced comparison features, replacing the tedious pivot tables on Excel experience our team has to do everytime.
Product experience is a piece of a larger puzzle, and the entire user journey is shaped by its parts. I adopted a scrappy startup mindset to deliver the best customer experience, whether it's in the software or in our service. I supported the Customer Operations team in upgrading the Insight Report design by understanding their workflow, mapping their service journey to identify improvements, and refining content flow, design, and visualizations.
To design a connected workflow and minimize experience gaps, I focused on end-to-end designs across Survey Results, Creators, and Takers. Since we were managing both version 1.0 and the transition to 2.0 simultaneously, I ensured a deep understanding of both systems. This allowed us to create a seamless bridge, helping users transition smoothly to the new experience.
With limited investment in UX and competing priorities, influencing product decisions was challenging. As the solo full-time designer in a small startup, I focused on becoming a well-rounded designer. I took on research projects to keep my skills sharp, worked on improving my workshop facilitation—even when I faced setbacks—and enrolled in a Product Strategy for Designers course to enhance my product thinking and communication. I honed my design craft, deepened my understanding of the engineering process for better collaboration, and became more effective at documenting and articulating my decisions. This allowed me to present design options with clear trade-offs more confidently.
I am a Product Designer whose passion lies in enhancing the human experience through scalable digital solutions.
