REPORT BUILDER TOOL: A 6-WEEK SUCCESS STORY

VISION

MSCI’s Total Plan Platform team wanted to launch a one of a kind reporting service for its global client base and win prospect clients. There was a sense of urgency and a demanding 6-week deadline to deliver a top class Report Builder experience. I was in charge of launching and leading its design along with a small team of 2 product managers and 3 engineers.

“Built a POC from 0-1 in 6 weeks.”

PROBLEM

Total Plan's reporting service struggled to meet users' diverse and evolving needs due to its reliance on manual, ad-hoc processes. This resulted in time-consuming requests, inconsistent output, and a lack of flexibility in generating customized PDF reports.

GOALS

Create an intuitive UI and a powerful data model for easy report configuration, allowing users to build custom PDF reports in the Platform for a wide range of use cases.

OUR APPROACH

Facing a demanding 6-week deadline, we employed a Lean UX methodology to expedite Report Builder development. Collaborating closely with product managers and engineers, we established SMART goals, defined roles, and implemented an efficient workflow characterized by open communication and transparent feedback. As the UX-UI lead, I oversaw discovery, scope definition, and design aspects.

DESIGN PLANNING AND DISCOVERY

Before diving into design, I conducted discovery interviews with some of our clients, observed them use our existing reporting functionality, gathered insights on their pain points and needs which served as a foundation for whiteboard sessions with Product and Leadership. Based on findings from our research, we defined a set of principles that the Report Builder Tool should have, for a successful proof-of-concept implementation. These served as a northstar for the project.

User Control: Ensure users have full control over their content, including data selection, page design and sharing with easy to use interface and clear options for customization.
Ease of Use: Considering that our user base are not professional designers, design an intuitive, user-friendly interface, minimizing complexity for both beginner and power users.
Scalability: Build the Report Builder tool to be scalable, allowing it to grow and adapt with seller’s needs, as well as be adaptable with other company wide product offerings.

INTERFACE DESIGN

Picking up on our user’s general mental model, I designed a simple three panel interface. Sketching and jotting down pages and pages of notes before hitting pixels on the screen. In order to expedite engineering work, my efforts were to pick up on existing UI patterns from the Platform. Final interface UI was three part layout:

Left panel: Content, data
Middle section: Design canvas, playground
Right Panel: Data configuration and Formatting

PLANNING UI INTERACTIONS

Collaboratively with front-end devs I designed a flex grid, defined detailed interaction specs to support adding content blocks, resizing, removing data and deleting blocks. Page layout behaviors were also defined for adding a page, duplicating, deleting and zooming in/out. Robust testing and iteration led to a smooth page layout builder interface.

USABILITY TESTING

To evaluate the Report Builder tool and new Reports Page, I initiated a comprehensive usability testing session. Overcoming initial team reservations about client involvement, I successfully secured 9 testing sessions with limited resources. Within two weeks, I conducted the testing and presented actionable findings.

My objectives was to:

Measure the overall UX performance of the tools.
Evaluate the usability of the design and discoverability of features.
Identify areas for improvement to enhance the user experience.

Methodology

Participants: 9 Total Plan Platform clients
Session Duration: 60 minutes
Session Format: 1-on-1 remote interviews
Tasks: 16 tasks covering the end-to-end flow of report creation, design, and execution
Environment: Live testing environment

Task Scenarios

Task scenarios were carefully crafted to simulate real-world usage scenarios. These scenarios focused on key aspects of report creation, including:

Creating a new report
Designing a report layout
Selecting and configuring data
Adding and customizing content blocks
Previewing and exporting the report

Participant Feedback

The usability testing sessions yielded positive feedback from participants, highlighting the following key points:
Key Findings:

Positive User Experience: Overall, participants had a positive experience using the Report Builder tool and the new Reports Page.
High Usability: The tools were found to be highly usable and intuitive, with minimal difficulty in completing tasks.
Strong User Satisfaction: Participants expressed satisfaction with the tool's functionality and ease of use.
Areas for Improvement: While the overall feedback was positive, there were a few minor areas identified for potential improvement, such as refining certain feature labels or providing additional context in specific scenarios.

These findings provided valuable insights for further refining the Report Builder tool and ensuring an optimal user experience.

OUTCOME

Within the stringent 6-week timeline, we successfully delivered a functional POC for the Report Builder that addressed the pressing needs of Total Plan's users. Our solution empowered users with greater control over their reports, simplified the report creation process and improved user satisfaction and efficiency.

CONCLUSION

The successful development of the Report Builder tool not only met the immediate needs of Total Plan's client base but also positioned MSCI as a leader in providing innovative reporting solutions. This project demonstrated the effectiveness of our Lean UX methodology in delivering high-quality products under tight deadlines. The insights gained from this experience will inform future development efforts and contribute to MSCI's ongoing commitment to user-centric design.