Analytics/Reporting
Running reports is a key daily activity for most roles in the Ad Tech industry. With the number of corporate acquisitions Yahoo has had over the years, you can only imagine the number of reporting platforms and backend systems that were available to employees. Consolidation was needed to optimize workflows and reduce redundant and costly external tools. The Business, Product, UX and Engineering teams then met at numerous off-site summits to develop a vision of creating a single reporting and analytics platform.
Strategy
Performing a complete UX/UI overhaul of the reporting platform was determined to be the best course of action. Reporting 2.0 kicked off in 2020 promising to be a completely redesigned Analytics/Reporting experience.
The goal was to replace the current disparate systems and to build in the missing features that were leading to the use of external platforms. With this new tool, the company would have a centralized and effective way to handle all reporting and analytics needs.
Original design
Concept exploration
After doing an extensive review of comeptitors including Google Analytics, Tableau, Meta Markets and Looker, I sketched concepts that were refined into wireframe concepts to set up for user feedback. There were 3 concepts to simplify the process and cut down on clicks to create a report.
Sketch concepts
Wireframe concepts
Initial UX Testing
Several extensive UXR studies were conducted with Reporting users. The user-testing focused on asking users the best solution by presenting them with 4 different concepts.
User testing report
Features & Workflows
Upon designing the experience for Reporting I created 500+ mocks to show details for all interactions and shared with the PM and Engineering teams using Sketch, Figma and displayed with Invision. New features included robust filtering system, 10+ data visuals, date comparison, easy dashboard creation and scheduled reports, alerts, same view edit and display, filter comparison, download report, adhoc report option, save report, drag and drop reordering for dashboards and table display.
Workflows
UX Solution
It was determined that the Publisher platforms would require the lowest level of effort for the engineering team tasked with overhauling the legacy reporting platform. This was a multi-quarter project that continues to innovate and expand feature sets to this day.
Because the tool would be accessed not only by the SSP users, but also the Ad Server teams, account teams and external customers not using our SSP, the Reporting tool needed to be a stand-alone platform as well as integrated into the SSP. Adherence to our Design System allowed the tool to be essentially I-framed into the SSP without looking like a foreign element.
Report List
Create Report
Select Panel
Selected Dimensions & Metrics
Report View
Created Dashboard
DSP UX Testing
I ran multiple session with internal users (account mangers) to gain understanding of how they felt about the new version of Reporting. Overall the results from the discussion was very positive. They really liked how simple it was and all the new functionality including, filters, selecting dimensions and metrics, date range comparison and creation of dashboards.
User Sessions
Transcript overview
Results
Once launched into Beta, there was a 50% reduction in time spent on the platform indicating an increase in speed and ease of use. 43% of users adopted the platform during the beta roll-out and didn’t return to the legacy tool. The success of the GA release the following quarter led to the adoption of the tool by the DSP that replaced their in-platform analytics with new Reports 2.0. Once introduced into the DSP the usage rate went up by 470%.