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GeoLink Reports

Introduction

GeoLink Reports is the reporting platform for GeoLink (marketing DSP). We got complaints from the users (clients) about how hard it was to use GeoLink Reports. The PM was also on the same page and prioritize the problem for the quarter, so I was able to look into it.

The effort started with research, and ended up with a brand new redesign that improved the usability from above-average to excellent (SUS score from 72.5 to 91.25), and contributed to the 52% revenue growth YOY.

Duration

5 Weeks (2021)

Client

In-house (InMarket GeoLink Team)

Team

Lead Product Designer (Myself), Product Manager, Lead Engineer, Sales Director, Account Managers

My Role

User Interview, Persona, Survey, Ideation, User Flow, Prototyping, Usability Testing

0. Intro 1. Overview 2. Existing Platform 3. Discover 4. Define 5. Develop & Deliver 6. Reflections

1. Overview

Project Brief

👤

User

GeoLink clients who work as Ad Ops and monitor campaigns regularly (primary)

😵‍💫

Problem

GeoLink Reports was bad at usability and affordance, thus creating bad user experience and complaints.

💡

Solution

Design a solution to improve the usability and affordance of Geolink Reports

🎉

Impact

Substaintial improvement in usability (SUS score from 72.5 to 91.25), and contributed to 52% revenue growth YOY

Final Solution Demo

Online Dashboard

The users can access interactive online dashboards for different campaigns.

Try Figma Prototype

Spreadsheet Download

The users can download the spreadsheets with raw data for different campaigns.

Try Figma Prototype

Process

project highlight
0. Intro 1. Overview 2. Existing Platform 3. Discover 4. Define 5. Develop & Deliver 6. Reflections

2. Existing Platform

Existing Platform

What's this???

Believe it or not, this is the existing homepage of GeoLink Reports - looking empty and unfinished!

existing platform

Start > Select Report Category > Select Report > Configure Report Filters > Load Dashboard > End

existing platform

Start > Select Download > Select Campaign > Press "Download" Button > Save Spreadsheet to Local > End

existing platform
0. Intro 1. Overview 2. Existing Platform 3. Discover 4. Define 5. Develop & Deliver 6. Reflections

3. Discover

Problem & User

😵‍💫 Problem


GeoLink Clients, sales, and account managers complained that GeoLink Reports was hard to use. Why?

👤 User


GeoLink clients. Was it all? Could it be more specific?

Stakeholder Interview

stakeholder interview screenshots

Findings about Problem

  • Bad User Experience
  • Not Intuitive
  • Confusing
  • Difficult Navigation
  • Don’t Know What To Expect for Various Reports
  • Too Many Unfamiliar Report Categories

Findings about User

  • GeoLink Clients - Ad Ops (to review campaign performance)
  • GeoLink Clients - CMOs (to review campaign performance)
  • Account Managers (to gather campaign performance reports for clients)

Key Decision

Design for both external and internal users?

No!

I had a meeting with PM and account managers, we decided to design primarily for external clients, because they brought in revenue. But the design should also made sure to at least work for account managers.

User Interview

user interview

Findings about Problem

  • Usability and affordance were big issues.
  • The users were generally happy with the existing flow, and they didn’t want a totally different design.
  • Reports download could not apply date range, and it's a painpoint for the users.

Findings about User

  • CMO actually didn not use GeoLink Reports, our internal team was WRONG!
  • The users were all titled "Ad Ops".
Usability Score
  • SUS Score = 72.5 (out of 100)
  • The score indicated that the usability of the system was slightly above average, and a long way from excellent usability.
0. Intro 1. Overview 2. Existing Platform 3. Discover 4. Define 5. Develop & Deliver 6. Reflections

4. Define

Redefined Problem & User

😵‍💫 Redefined Problem


GeoLink Reports was bad at usability and affordance, leading to bad user experience and user complaints.

👤 Redefined User


Primary: GeoLink clients who work as Ad Ops and monitor campaigns regularly

Secondary: Internal account managers

Persona - Ad Ops

Talia photo

Talia Anderson

Ad Ops

Age: 29

Status: Single

Location: Lancaster, PA

Work Experience: 6 Years

Bio

Talia is an Ad Ops working for a small-mid size advertising agency (50-200 employees) in Lancaster, PA. She enjoys the world of marketing, and is absolutely an expert in Hands On Keyboard media buying. She implements strategies, sets up campaigns, monitors and optimizes them for good performance, and reports back to the clients regularly. She also makes sure to analyze performance to maximize KPIs and keep updating strategies. She uses various platforms for her work, including GeoLink and some other DSPs.

Needs

  • She needs optimize ad spend.
  • She needs to make timely changes
  • She needs to meet a KPI goal
  • She needs to customize the workflow

Goals

  • She wants to achieve more with less time and lower cost.
  • She wants good performance for her choices of media buying.
  • She wants to avoid repetition and fatigue.

Frustrations

  • Too many manual processes
  • Too many steps in certain tasks
  • Has multiple logins over various platforms
  • Has to wait a long time for certain steps
0. Intro 1. Overview 2. Existing Platform 3. Discover 4. Define 5. Develop & Deliver 6. Reflections

5. Develop & Deliver

Task Flow Design

task flow design

Prototyping

Note: Because the flow was not complicated and our design system was in place, I went ahead with mid-high fidelity prototypes that helped me to communicate with stakeholders.

Online Dashboard v1

Option - with Modal

online dashboard v1 - option a

Option - without Modal

online dashboard v1 - option b

Key Decision

With or without modal?

Without modal!

I presented the options to our UX team, and the team agreed that the flow without modal was preferred. Reasons being:

  1. It’s more efficient by saving the steps of opening/closing the modal.
  2. It offered better affordance because users can tell what reports were available without even opening up the modal.

Online Dashboard v2

online dashboard v2
online dashboard exploration

Online Dashboard v3 (Final)

I revised the design according to the survey findings, and also refined the design with tooltip that helped to improve affordance.

online dashboard v3
Try Figma Prototype

Spreadsheet Download v1

The user flow goes: Start > Open Campaign Dropdown > Select Campaign > Download Campaign > Save to Local > End

spreadsheet download v1

Spreadsheet Download v2

I tried to combine spreadsheet download with online dashboard so that the design would be simplier and better in affordance.

spreadsheet download v2 spreadsheet download v2 feedback

Spreadsheet Download v3

I reversed the design back to the separate interface for spreadsheet download due to the feedback.

spreasheet download v3

Spreadsheet Download v4(Final)

Download All Campaigns by Month

spreadsheett download v4 - all campaigns by month
Try Figma Prototype

Download One Campaign

spreadsheet download v4 - single campaign
Try Figma Prototype

Usability Test

usability test photo

Usability Test Findings

  • 100% success rate for all the tasks
  • Task 01 - Tell me what’s included in the Campaign Performance Report
  • Task 02 - Tell me the CTR for the Campaign Performance Report
  • Task 03 - Download the spreadsheet for campaign “Allis Metal”
  • Task 04 - Download the spreadsheet for all the campaigns for 2024/11
SUS Score
  • SUS score = 91.25 (out of 100)
  • The score indicated that the usability of the system is excellent, and it’s a huge improvement from SUS score of 72.5.

Design Handoff

design handoff meeting

Handoff to Engineers

I set up a design hand-off meeting with engineers, PM, and account manager to go through the design and answer the questions from the engineers.

The front-end engineer was concerned about auto-fill and auto-load feature for Looker dashboard, so I eased his concern with the findings from the previous meeting with Looker engineer.

0. Intro 1. Overview 2. Existing Platform 3. Discover 4. Define 5. Develop & Deliver 6. Reflections

6. Reflections

Reflections

Always Validate Assumptions

Do not assume that the interface with my internal account is 100% the same as the external users’ (clients’) accounts, double-check with the stakeholders.

Engage Users Directly

Send the default page surveys directly to the users instead of account managers if possible, so that I can get more reliable responses with a larger sample size.