How to design a BI tool for Business Users as a Product Manager?
Cohort
Business users across different domains — CXO level
Problem and pain points
In day to day activities, business users across domain, often are in the rush to get a top down approach in taking decisions for the department they are handling. They do not have the time to go to every miniscule data and find the reason for the same. They need to be able to perform few things which could be visible geography wise, department wise, product wise, client/customer wise on the fly. The main objective is to reduce time to retrieve the insight and give the user what he is trying to find. In such scenario we need to keep in mind to design a domain agnostic approach for a user. Based on research I found the following could be the pain points for a business user: -
1. He/she should be able to view and interact with the high-level understanding of real time trend of revenue
2. Should be able to dig deep into the high-level insight to deep dive within a geography/ department/ product/ customer
3. Should be able to find the root cause behind a sudden fall in sales
4. Should be able to get an alert when there is a good probability of an event occurring in the market or inside the company that could have a significant unexpected impact on the revenue
5. Should be able to just ask the platform any specific data needed in natural language and get the data and the insight within a minute
Choosing the problem to be solved first: -
Metrics
1. Avg Time to get the output or the root cause in one part of the session- where part of the session is since the moment user seems to be digging to find the root cause
2. Avg number of clicks taken by the user to find the root cause
Solution to the chosen problem
After choosing root cause analysis we can devise different ways to solve this problem: -
1. In the dashboard-> When user finds an issue eg. A dip in sales, he/she would be able to click on the portion of the dip or the issue -> Then on clicking a search bar would pop up in that portion and user can write the question associated with that portion of the graph or chart -> This way the root cause analysis scope is constrained to the portion clicked and will need less data processing. By this approach user remains on the first screen without loosing the rest of the graphs and is also able to do root cause analysis on a problem identified visualization as well. Hence less data processing, average experience.
2. In the dashboard, the user is able to search for the root cause directly at the top of the dashboard-> Based on the keywords used and the context of the search the system would analyze by pulling out represented in different visualizations in the dashboard instead-> Hence the process would need more data processing and would be less accurate. On the other hand, the user doesn’t need to go and click on specific problem on the dashboard. Hence user experience is low since he may or may not get the exact answer in the first search. More data processing.
3. In the third kind, the user will be able to view the dashboard first-> then he/she would be able click on the portion the user wants to dig deep into-> On user’s click he/she will be taken to the second screen where the dashboard focuses on the data associated with the portion clicked by the user eg. If revenue of November is the least, then on clicking the revenue of November the user will be able to view the store wise sales in November and hence can find the reason behind the drop -> In the second screen the user can further write in the search box at top if he/she further needs to find the reason, in case the reason is external to the company. Less data processing, user experience good.
Choosing the solution based on certain parameters: -
Solution chosen — third one.
Requirement document for 3rd solution
Screens 1 and 2 (below)
Closing Notes
We can also choose the solution by running AB Testing with clients and check for performance of metrics chosen.
If you would like to understand how to design a mobile app for a visually impaired individual you can refer this article https://ektabharti.medium.com/mobile-banking-for-visually-impaired-9153d3f57cef
