Overview

ASI supports distributors and suppliers in the promotional products industry with a platform to showcase inventory and streamline transactions. Suppliers can upload products, assess distributor partnerships, and utilize analytics to track performance. Our stakeholders engaged us to enhance the supplier analytics tool by improving feature usability and overall platform engagement.

Role: UX Researcher

Duration: 4 months

Tools: Microsoft Teams, Miro, Figma

Challenge

A key challenge we faced was determining the right audience to interview for us to understand the currenty experience of our analytics tool. Our platform caters to various types of suppliers, from individual vendors to large corporate accounts, and we needed to understand how each of these groups utilizes analytics to support their business operations. Each of these suppliers would have a different number of new features they’d like to have in our system.We needed to recruit a wide range of suppliers to identify how we can meet the business needs of our all our suppliers in one platform.

Research Questions

  1. Understand how suppliers are currently utilizing analytics for their business

  2. Identify current experience and affinity of our analytic platform

  3. Identify pain points do suppliers face when analyzing their data for their business

Research Process

To address our research questions, we designed a two-phase study. The first phase involved a qualitative approach, conducting interviews with internal stakeholders and suppliers to gain insights into the current needs and compare expectations of users. We opted for user interviews to gain a comprehensive view of our suppliers and to ask follow-up questions about how our platform aligns with their current business needs.

In the second phase, we carried out moderated usability studies with users, using a prototype informed by the findings from the first phase. These usability tests focused on the prototype’s navigation and supplier feedback, assessing whether it aligned with their business needs. Conducting these moderated usability studies enabled us to ask follow-up questions during tasks and uncover potential pitfalls in the user journey on the new platform.

Phase 1: Discovery Interviews

I worked closely with the project manager and UX designer to organize virtual interviews with eight stakeholders, aiming to clarify our business objectives. Each stakeholder offered a unique perspective on how we could better support our suppliers and provided constraints of our platforms when discussing potential features. After these interviews, we received a list of suppliers to reach out for semi-structured interviews.

We selected 9 suppliers to interview via Microsft Teams.These suppliers ranged from small, independent companies to multifaceted organizations with their own analytics resources, giving us a comprehensive overview of the overall user experience. We focused on their current analytics needs and how they integrate analytics into their operations. We wanted to understand why they choose other platforms and what specific features prompted them to switch. Additionally, we discussed their experiences with our current platform to pinpoint any pain points. Although each supplier uses analytics in its own way, similar patterns of business needs emerged across the interviews.

We used thematic analysis to identify common patterns and themes in our suppliers' responses. Each interview question was coded based on individual supplier feedback, and these codes were compared across interviews. After several rounds of refinement, we developed final themes from the codes, which were then reviewed with our team. Finally, we compared these user themes with stakeholder expectations and feedback to provide a comprehensive view of our users' experiences.

Phase 2: Validation Interviews

After sharing our findings with stakeholders, we leveraged our research to shape the design of a new analytics platform. Within a few weeks, our designer developed a mid-fidelity prototype for design validation sessions with the same suppliers. In these moderated qualitative usability studies, suppliers were asked to navigate the new analytics dashboard and explore various reports, while we assessed whether the new iteration met the needs they had expressed in earlier interviews.

Reflection and takeaways

This discovery research was essential in mapping out the design of an MVP version of our analytics platform that meets the needs of both internal and external stakeholders.

  • Engaging with users of various experience levels allowed us to gain a complete understanding of the experience we provide

  • Relying on feedback from our internal stakeholders will be crucial for prioritizing features to enhance the platform's overall experience

  • Scheduling conflicts during design validations prevented us from validating with every supplier we interviewed.