True Analytics
Trueform's data collection is providing shopper quantitative metrics for brand makers.
Trueform.io wanted to solve this b2b problem: How do we provide accurate, wicked fast data reports of their buyers for brand makers?
In October 2017, I inherited an analytics portal that took 25 plus seconds to deliver statistics of shopper behaviors from an iPad application – originally launched in Spring 2017.
The CEO requirements were anecdotal and based upon internal business and prospective client discussions. There was no user research, just market research, and competitive analysis. All due respect, the CEO came from the finance industry but was self-taught in the world of product development in the software industry. We just launched our Kiosk a month earlier, and we were within days of opening our flagship store with our tablet app.
The company knew the current portal wasn’t ready for primetime. A month later, I asked my CEO if he wanted to go live with his current service. He shared just half-way; the portal needed significant work but was willing to use what they built in the meantime. I followed up with – Are you ready to share this portal to our b2b customers? He paused and said no. I replied, Sounds like it’s time for a new portal replacement!
"I wanted to deliver a best-in-class analytics portal, because I believed in Trueform's vision and mission. This problem was particularly challenging due to inaccurate data collection from our tablets into the existing analytics portal. The delayed openings of our locations impacted our ability to stress test Trueform's software, store experience and overall goal, vision and mission."
Scottie
Our Goal
Deliver next-day quantitive sales funnel statics and analytics for our brand partners.
Our Hypothesis
True Analytics provides quantitive results for our brand partners to reflect on their product placement and performance in a retail setting.
Other Team Members
- Denis Cook, CEO
- Ning Jiang, CTO
- Michael Smith, COO
- Eric Large, Techincal Architect
- Sharan Jhangiani, Data Science (Analytics) Intern
- Ruhi Pudipeddi, Software Engineering Intern
My Process
In mid-November 2017 – I continued to work with the CEO, CTO, COO, and Technical Architect to gather product, business, and technical requirements. At the time, we realized the raw data capture we were recording from our tablets needed to be filtered to report data across what we measured in the portal accurately. Regardless of the layout, that needed to be fixed before we ran any data through any proposed design. The CEO and COO anecdotally recommended having seven sections:
- Summary
- Dashboard
- Clicks
- Dwells
- Demos
- Sales
- People
Since I requested this major restart – I treated these sketches as my wireframes, got business and engineering sign off, and dove into visual design layouts for development. I had to make up the time difference. Usually, I would have gone into wire flows/wireframes documentation.
Primer for Design
During an early November 2017 morning – I was able to document base guidelines for typography, color, and spacing before creating visual design artifacts. This documentation informed the team of the general mood for the visual design.
I inherited the muted blue, original logo, and type selected from a previous designer and CEO. I added additional accent colors to accommodate scenarios and experiences for the brand.
The CEO at the time selected Avenir based on his preference. He realized there was a license usage for it, so he defaulted to Montserrat, a free font type based in Buenos Aries. At the time, I didn’t have any issues with the selection until years later in the product development.
Our Solution
Here are some samples of the initial launch of True Analytics, March 2018. Please note, the current summary page in this sequence didn't result in any sales since this brand only sold at their locations and website.
After the initial launch, we attempted to visualize the quantitative data we were collecting for our brands. Below were some recommendations I provided for the business.
Phase 2 of True Analytics goal was to take the results of our quantitative totals to make it easy to compare data and use it to tell a story – both of which can help our audience in their decision making.
My Impression
Our business strategy changed course, impacting the budget, and results for True Analytics. It operates currently, and any refinements are an “as need” basis and if it will provide more any additional value to our offerings. For the remaining weeks of Summer 2018, We focused on optimizing the data collection of our iOS Application.
“Trueform really have something unique. Not only do they facilitate us with a solid sales channel, but they also provide us with comprehensive customer & sales data via the True Analytics platform. The platform is very user-friendly and allows us to easily view and share our sales data at the click of a button. This comprehensive sales data has been an invaluable asset in helping us close deals with numerous retailers.”
Kallum S., European Sales Director; Cowin Audio
My Learning
To be less timid with my new team members and demand clarity when I ask for it. The requirements for the MVP needed to be more rigorous with UX activities instead of using Anectdotal data; the structure and flow didn’t make sense, which disrupted my understanding and deliverables to my engineering team. Wireflows and Wireframing would have netted a more profound execution of implementing the qualitative graphs. It was a rushed process, resulting in mediocre-looking dashboards. Perhaps the CTO and I will revisit this 2018 project and provide qualitative figures that would produce genuine insights and predict sales and buyer behaviors for our brand partners.
UPDATE – Summer 2019
I had a fantastic opportunity to mentor our Summer 2019 UX Engineer Intern, Jojo Saunders. Check out his case study here!