Assigned as a UX designer at PayPal Plus Germany to overhaul the internal sales reporting tool.
Aim is to address usability issues and incorporate a well researched, comprehensive user experience.
Tool has 10,000+ daily active users and that comprises both internal and external users
Background & context
The main trigger
Parallely, I somehow managed to engage in one-on-one conversations with sales engineers, unfolding the granular problem areas with the tool, more specific on the UI side of things
Sitting side-by-side I explored their workflows, tasks, and goals when using the sales reporting tool. b) Explored their workflows, challenges, and frustrations while generating reports and accessing merchant details.
Identified points of confusion, areas of hesitation, and instances of frustration.
Discovered instances where users struggled with the tool's filter system, resulting in inefficient data retrieval.
Segmentation helped to empathize with individuals users indirectly, tailor design decisions, and prioritize features based on user needs.
This led us to provide a unified UX for the app and not standalone solutions and sell the tool to other functional PayPal teams across the globe
01
Sales engineers
Daily and regular usage
Downloading Scored Reports
Adding/Updating New merchant Details
Core needs from the app
Quick filters to browse through 1000 of scored merchants as a list and download as one PDF
Frustation areas
Complex Navigation
Two different portal to browse merchants and download merchant reports
02
Data Analysts
Daily and regular usage, Primary tool of work
Downloading Scored Reports
Uses merchant details for presentations
Core needs from the app
Quick filters to browse through 1000 of scored merchants as a list and download as one PDF
Frustations areas
Complex Navigation
Two different portal to browse merchants and download merchant reports
03
Data Integration Engineer
Weekly Usage
Adding/updating New merchant Details
Downloading Scored Reports
Core needs from the app
Quick filters to browse through 1000 of unscored merchants as a list and download as one PDF
Frustations areas
Complex Navigation
Two different portal to browse merchants and download merchant reports
Insights from user Interviews
Engaged in one-on-one conversations to understand their experiences, challenges, and pain points.
Quick Downloading and Updating Reports
Universal Search using Merchant ID’s or Merchant Name
Advanced Multi Level & Pre defined Filtering
Rebranding to PayPal’s New look and feel
Downloading Reports
Drew an emotional graph to understand what were the stages of frustration and allowed us to prioritise for the right problem areas.
Before going ahead with design, there were some Challenges we faced at the execution and implementation level,
Cramped timeline as the leadership team felt to wrap this up as quickly as possible to track and test further. Typical cross functional collaboration hazzle.
No dedicated backend team, hand-coded frontend myself; relied on busy cross-functional team member for backend help.
A brief look at the content and information flow of the tool
Since we had the new PayPal's design guidelines shared across the distributed design teams,
We proceeeeeeeded ahead with the design prototyping.
Header & Primary Filters
During discovery its understood that the users preferred universal search option for single merchant searches, we added a search bar in the header to accommodate this.
Add Merchant is added adjacent to the search bar, so once the user finds a merchant missing during a search, they can add it using this button. No scroll! Saves time! Recurring User Pattern!
For example, Scored merchants are merchants who are scored against the PayPal BPE guidelines whereas un-scored merchants is a list that are yet to be scored by the engineers
Data analysts were concerned about the scored list of merchants, Whereas Integration engineers and Sales engineers work on the un-scored merchants
These big filter buttons allowed different user types to switch between different table view of their choice
Refined Search
To simply the filters, we merged all the secondary filters in to one collapsible component. This simplification allowed us to scale for the future filter conditions.
Refined search filters had the significant usability issues identified during the research, as a next step I took a stab at rethinking the filter components, simplifying it
Based on the above content flow map, We figured out that there were 6 filters conditions that were associated with the merchant data, out of which we simplified them to two datatypes of filters - Multi select text type & Date type
This collapse panel is initially open when logging in. We realised that showing filters all the time is inessential because users often take screenshots of the merchant list for internal presentations. Having the filters always visible made users to edit the screenshots before use. So, we made the filters as a collapsible action butkeeping it open by default.
Few nuances we decided to add to the filtering functioning
Text type - Multi select
Merchant name, Owner Flag, Integration Manager, Pass/fail,
Selected options in the multi select filters show up in the top
Visual indicator for the users to show the no of options selected in each filter
Auto Saving the filters for the next session when user logout.
Date Type - Calendar
LTS (Live to site), also to accomodate other date filters.
Quick filters such as Today. Yesterday, Last Week, Last month, Last quarter saves user time in selecting recurring date ranges every-time.
Visual indicator for the date shows the no of days selected within the date range.
Auto-saving the filters for the next session
Merchants list table
This Table list enabled the user for easy scanning of merchant information without clutter, were users can click on the merchant row that reveals the secondary information.
We included edit and download options for merchant reports when hovering over a row. Users considered it a secondary (end of day) task and didn't feel the need to show them upfront.
Design consolidation and drawing the final interations.
User Impact
Through this redesign, we saw significant impact from both users and business perspective. We did some thorough usability tests and the reports were resonating the sales engineer's confidence in finishing their jobs and how faster they were able to close deals due to enhanced access to merchant information and improved user experience of the portal.
Below are the few metrics on specific tasks analysis we tried tracking which turned out to be successful after subsequent evolutions and iterations of he tool. We used a combination of tools such as HotJar, Mix-panel, video Recordings to identify user behaviour and patterns to evolve.
Increased user satisfaction score
Reduced time spent generating reports
Improved accuracy of filters
Hey there 👋
Thanks for taking time, let’s catch up if you’re hiring or just wanted to know more about me. I’m all open to discuss about design all day. So don’t be shy to connect.